Brian: Tokyo

I'm writing from a public terminal in a capsule hotel right now. So far, I've spent close to ¥9200 (approx $92), here's the breakdown:

¥110 - small (roughly 1 pint) bottle of Evian water
¥1700 - luggage delivery for 1 suitcase to Kyoto
¥3000 - Narita Express 32 from Narita airport to Tokyo, then to Akihabara (no additional charge)
¥380 - beef bowl at Yoshinoya
¥4000 - 1 night stay at a capsule hotel

So to start from the beginning, we left Honolulu at around 10AM and the flight was 8 hrs. The in-flight movies were good: I watched Happy Feet, Blood Diamond, and part of Casino Royale. I also did some reading and took a restful nap. After landing in Narita airport, I had to speak Japanese for the first time when passing through immigration. I didn't want to screw up so I just asked if he could speak english, ego ga dekimasenka? and luckily he could, so there were no problems getting into the country. Michael also got through really fast, so we had about 2 hours to kill while waiting for Patrick to arrive. During this time, there was a small unattended bag on the seat 2 away from me, and a police officer noticed it. Thus commenced about 40 minutes of pointing at the bag, asking nearby shop clerks about the owner, calling for backup (2 other officers eventually showed up), scanning it with some sort of handheld scanner (for explosives?), and finally removing it. I took a few pictures of the episode, which I will upload later when I get the chance to use my laptop.

After Patrick arrived we collectively sent our luggage to Kyoto, then bought tickets for the Narita Express to Tokyo. This time I managed to ask for a ticket, say yes to a question, and ask for the price before copping out and asking if she spoke english. Although in retrospect, that's about all you need to do to buy a ticket...

The ride to Tokyo was about an hour, where we connected to the Yamanote line to get to Akihabara. The station is like a mini-city, and lots of times we would literally be going up and down stairs following the signs as if we were in an underground Dwarven mining camp. Patrick and Michael are waiting for me now, so I will abbreviate the next parts. At Akihabara, we saw a Yoshinoya across the street from the JR station and ate dinner there, then looked for Internet for the next hour. We finally decided to ask for directions to a capsule hotel at a police station, and somehow got there without getting lost. The capsule hotel was also a bit of a culture shock, everything there was new and different, and there were few signs in English. I think I accidentally threw away my one-use toothbrush instead of putting it in the recycling bin, and showering was interesting because I had no idea what to do (and it's hard to think about it without getting awkward in front of the other people there). The capsule itself was more spacious than I imagined and also quite comfortable. I got a full night's sleep and woke up at 5:30 to some guy's alarm that wouldn't turn off. It's 7 AM now and we're about to take off for breakfast and from then on make our way to the ryokan we reserved in Ikebukuro. Then, we're meeting up with a friend from Keio university at 4PM.