Whoa, long travel days are rough! I got up at 2:15am to leave my folks’ house in Monument, CO at 3:20am for Denver International by 4:30. Flight was at 6:30. Got to Houston by 9:10, just to sit on the tarmac waiting for a spot for our plane to park (by about 9:40, yawn). Met Mike — my flight arrived exactly across the corridor from the gate for the flight to Narita — grabbed some food, and we were back onto a large aircraft for the next 13+ hours! From there, we caught a bus for another 1-1/2 hours to get to Omiya Station and a hotel. Even though it was only 6:00pm (on Sunday, mind you), we crashed and completely missed dinner, just to find ourselves wide awake at 3pm.

Let’s see…awake from 2:00am Saturday until 6:00pm Sunday (3am, Colorado time) — so that’s a good 24 hours of travel. Ack.

When I checked in with family this morning, they asked for my impressions so far of Japan. As bleary-eyed as I was on the bus ride, my impressions were so far limited. This morning didn’t add much, except that the hotel’s cafe had deco reminiscent of a 1980s salad bar (pale peaches and cream, green carpet, faded houseplants) and played the worst music. Take any overwrought love song from an American movie. Add Muzak. Oh, and the eggs here are runny. Please tell me that runny eggs aren’t going to be an ongoing theme!

Whine, whine, whine…packing again now, because we’re going to wander around Saitama/Omiya station, buy our tickets to Misawa (only a 3-hour trip this time), and immerse ourselves in northern Tokyo, pretending that we don’t look very, very pale, chubby, and tall compared to everyone else here.