First Night

So we arrived to Tokyo last night... after an 11 hour direct flight from Chicago, we were tired and ready to get to it. Because of our changed flight (which worked out really well for us in the end -originally supposed to be on a connecting flight via Seattle, we snagged a direct flight for a few hours later when the threat of mechanical problems threatened our ability to catch our connection), we got into Narita airport a little bit earlier than planned. So we waited for Jon to get through immigration and then we had to wait an hour for our bus (we opted for the "limo bus" instead of taking the train due to travel exhaustion and rush hour craziness, that we just weren't ready for yet!).

After arriving in our hotel and checking in without a hitch, we decided to go grab some food and beers. This ended up being harder than we expected... The first place we went to was a small hole in the wall. With Huge's Japanese, we were able to order a couple of beers and two of the house specialties. It was a risky move, but worked out in the end as we got a few chicken dishes, a couple of skewers and some interesting (intestine?) soup. After that good experience, we thought we'd try our luck and go somewhere else to experience something else. That's where things got interesting. We were turned away from TWO RESTAURANTS! They explained to us (in English) that they didn't speak English or have English menus. We were ok with that as we were just going to wing it, but it clearly wasn't acceptable for them. Sigh... we ended up in a ramen shop where we placed our order from a machine and then sat at the bar to wait for it to be delivered. I will say that it was delicious and after being turned away from the other places, we were happy they were willing to help us.

Hopefully this doesn't set the mood for the trip, but it will be interesting! Thank goodness for Huge's Japanese!