So, I’m here. Made it safe and sound, if not too pleasantly.
The trip started off on somewhat of a bad foot. We got to Tyson McGhee later than needed, which put us in a huge rush and panic. Also discovered that airports turn people into real assholes. People cut in front of us as if we weren’t even there. At one point this man went off on some of these people and got into a big argument with one of them. Ridiculous.
Our plane to Chicago was small, only 50 seats, and I did not like it too much. Had to sit away from Sarah, which was lame. But the flight was only like an hour and a half to Chicago. No big deal. It was neat leaving Knoxville at night with all the city lights below us, and then getting to see the sunrise.
Five-hour layover in Chicago was incredibly boring and frustrating. We found out that Sarah had been bumped up to Economy Plus with no notification, which separated us on our super long 12-hour flight to Tokyo. Trying to get someone to help us was nearly impossible. Turns out, airport employees can be as big of jerks as airport customers. Which I suppose you can’t blame them for; I’m sure their jobs aren’t too pleasant, having to deal with such pain-in-the-ass customers. Anyway, we finally found someone who is both helpful and nice; unfortunately, there weren’t any available seats together. Great. He told us, however, that the person sitting next to me made a single reservation, so Sarah and I planned to coerce that person into switching with her. Free upgrade, why not?
Luckily, the person assigned to the seat next to me was this nice old Japanese woman who was more than glad to switch with Sarah. Thank god. I probably would’ve cried if she hadn’t.
The flight itself was… Long. Cramped. But not horrible, I suppose. Slept a lot, though not well. Food was decent. My biggest annoyance was the guy in front of me who had his chair reclined the entire time, which took away most of what little leg room I had. Talk about inconsiderate. I won’t lie—I kicked and pushed his seat a few times. (Although honestly, I had no other choice—getting to my bag without pushing up against his seat was just about impossible.) Toward the end of the flight, I started getting kind of claustrophobic, stir-crazy, and nauseous. Getting off that plane and out of that cramped space and dry air was such a relief.
Then we had to deal with the train system and getting to the hostel we’d reserved. It was incredibly confusing at first, but I think we’ve mostly got it figured out now. Once we got to Asakusabashi, which took an hour by train, we walked around in circles for a while, trying to find our hostel. Apparently Japan uses a sort of block system, where one section is given a name and number (like Shibuya 1 and Shibuya 2) and then it’s further divided into parts. Confusing as hell. We even asked several people for help and none of them directed us to the right place. After some time, we finally find the place, Anne Hostel. It’s a pretty decent hostel. We’re staying in an 8-bed female room with bunkbeds. There’s free albeit crappy wi-fi. Also free breakfast which consists of toast, hard-boiled eggs, and coffee/tea. So far we seem to be the only Americans here; everyone else is European or Asian.
Our first night in Asakusabashi, looking for dinner, was kind of a pain. We wandered around for a good while, trying to figure out what the menus said. Even with pictures, we couldn’t figure out what half the stuff was. Eventually we gave up and just went to some place that seemed reasonably priced with a large menu. We were seated by the entrance, away from everyone else—likely because we’re gaijin (foreigners). Our waitress there spoke no English and didn’t even attempt to work with us. She kept going on in a stream of fast-paced, unbelievably high-pitched Japanese. The food was mediocre. I just got some rice, miso, and chicken skewers. The waitress never checked on us again and took forever to bring us our check (actually, we had to ask someone else to bring it to us). Thank goodness there’s no tipping here, or else she wouldn’t have gotten anything. It was pretty ridiculous.
Today we went to Shibuya, which is a really big shopping district in Tokyo. I’ll post a separate entry for that later, when I get the chance.
