Kon'nichiwa, Japan!

Hello Japan!! It's been a big day!

We flew on the red-eye last night from New Caledonia to Tokyo. We're back in the Northern Hemisphere! It was a nine hour flight but at least it was direct! We each watched a couple of movies (I watched Arrival and Doctor Strange) and got a couple hours of sleep. We flew Aircalin again and had some really good food; the warm chocolate croissant at breakfast was particularly tasty. And we're here now! We landed shortly before 8am and got through customs just fine. Then we successfully exchanged our vouchers for Japan Rail (JR) Passes. We were lucky because we got to the office right as it was opening; the lady who helped us said there's generally a 2-hour wait the entire day! Then we caught the train to the Shinjuku station and then searched for our airbnb.

Wow! Tokyo is fabulous. Everywhere you look there's so much to see. I'm just constantly swiveling my head around trying to take it all in. And the best part is I can hardly understand a word of what anything is! It's all just a big colorful mystery.

We got to the area of our airbnb but couldn't quite figure out where exactly the apartment was and how to get into it so our host came and rescued us. He showed us in and gave us the key. Success! The place is... compact. But nice enough and has all the essentials. It's also very close to a couple of the train stations so that's super convenient. We'll be staying here for five nights.

It's also much cooler here than our previous locations- it was in the mid to low 50s today and mostly overcast. I might actually get to start wearing the other half of my clothes that I've been dragging along!

Once we got settled in then came the internal battle of which primal need to take care of first: exhaustion or hunger. Hunger won out so we went exploring for some food. We found it everywhere! The struggle was understanding anything enough to know if it was a place you wanted to eat or not, then what exactly you wanted, and then how to order it. Lots of places had pictures of plastic replicas of their food in the window so you could just point to what you wanted. We decided to really put our chopstick skills to the test and settled on a ramen place and successfully communicated our order to the waitress. It was really good! I had the miso and Matt had the shoyu, then we split some rice and dumplings. We were both fairly successful with the chopsticks; we each slurped soup on our shirts a few times and I had a dumpling causality which landed in my ramen that I had to dig out. But we were fed! Check.

Then we returned to the room for an hour nap. I had to set an alarm which woke me out of a deep slumber. But we were rested enough to finish the day. Double check.

Then off exploring again! This time: mission cherry blossoms. We're here in Tokyo at the perfect time to witness the famous cherry blossoms blooming so we wanted to go see them as soon as possible. The first park we tried to go to, Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, we arrived just after it closed (we had no idea it would close so that was a surprise). But we were not to be deterred and continued on to Yoyogi Park.

We wandered around Yoyogi Park for awhile searching for the elusive blossoms but it seemed the paths were determined not to lead us to them. We did find the Meiji Jingu shrine in the park which was pretty cool though. It is a Shinto shrine dedicated to the deified spirits of emperor Meiji and his wife. A lot of it was under construction having the roof repaired so I didn't get many good pictures, but here's one.

The path led us to one of the exits where we got shuffled out of the park due to closing so we thought we had missed our chance for the day. We decided to instead go check out the famous Shibuya crossing, which is rumored to be the busiest intersection in the world. But first! On the way there we were still walking along the edge of the park when we found an area that wasn't closed off. And we found the cherry blossoms!! It looks like they are just starting to bloom so not all of them are very full yet, but they are still very pretty. Mission accomplished!! There were a bunch of people hanging out around the blossoms- eating picnics, tossing a ball around, etc. Apparently this is called "hanami", which is cherry blossom viewing and a huge cultural tradition in Japan.

So then we continued on to the Shibuya crossing. On the way we saw lots of street food vendors which looked really good, but we had our hearts' set on a secret mission that we knew we could find near Shibuya crossing: Taco Bell. And we found it! I was so excited; I've been craving it hardcore lately. And it's the only one in the 15+ countries that we are visiting! So we definitely had to stop and grab a couple of tacos. This is the face of happiness:

Okay now really this time: Shibuya Crossing. It was only a couple of minutes away from Tbell and we got to take part of the massive migration across the street. It's just crazy how many people cross this intersection each day. Hundreds (sometimes over 1000 at peak time) cross at a time, coming and going from all directions. It was really cool and the pictures don't do it justice, but here's a look:

Then we took the train back to our place and settled in for the night. Jack just landed in Tokyo so he'll be rejoining us shortly as well.

Just one other thing that I have to mention: the toilets. The toilets here are superb. Truly first rate. I really don't understand why the US has not adopted these porcelain thrones. I probably won't do it justice explaining it since I still don't understand what all of the buttons do. But I can tell you that when I sat down to do my business it was on a nice heated toilet seat. Then it played music (presumably to cover any noises made) and released a nice perfumed scent. It also has the option of cleaning your sensitive parts and I believe you can control the pressure and temperature of the water. What an experience! I think Matt and I will have to install one in the house when we get back.

I published my New Caledonia summary page for anyone who wants to check that out. Good night, all!