“Once there was a way to get back homeward…”

Amit mysteriously appeared at my side as I was asking a Northwest ticketing representative if the 9:00 from Asheville had arrived.  It had and there he was…exhausted, because turns out he DID need the passport of his that I had in my purse to get on that leg of the flight, and he had also left his wallet at home, thus holding up the entire flight as his mom scrambled home to retrieve the wallet and higher authorities were consulted on the passport issue.  He had to leave almost immediately to go recheck his bag as I waited amid desperate calls of “Passenger Amit Dorf, Please report to gate 34A immediately!”  Just in case I forgot for a minute WHO I was travelling with, I was granted a very blunt reminder.

The flight was long and boring despite 90 minutes of Ratatouille, and the excitement of being glared at by a Japanese girl ahead of me who’s seat I kept kicking inadvertantly, who I would be willing to bet even surprised herself by how hatefilled her eyes could be.  Amit’s fried Maddie was there at the gate waiting for us. THank you sweet lord!  I love her because she makes fun of Amit in the ways I wish I could but would undoubtedly piss him off.  Due to some poor calculations on my part, I completely forgot about the whole international date line thing, and told the guy we were staying with we’d be arriving a day earlier, so we were left up to our own devices last night.  Amit’s friend Nao made us a reservation at a hostel in a part of Tokyo that looks like a peculiar mix of Brooklyn and Brookline, where our hotel was vended to us in a vending machine that also sold bath towels, toothbrushes, shaving equipment and shampoo.  Boys and girls were accomadated only in separate rooms on separate floors that are password protected so Amit and I had to stay apart which must make you happy Dad! haha.

Maddy and Nao took us to dinner at a Japanese-style Western dinner where it looked as though they were selling caricatures of American favorites like salisbury steaks and ice cream.  Amit and I had pizza, instead of a more traditional Japanese noodle dish for the sake of irony and the sake of Meg (no pineapple, boo), though we are committed to hitting Japanese cuisine hard and fast today.

Here are some stats on our first impressions of Tokyo:

-Best thing about Japan: There are BEER VENDING MACHINES.  Pretty much everywhere.  We were made aware of this by a Temple University student here on exchange whose primary mission was to break into the Japanese soft gay porn industry.  Turns out the weirdest thing about Japanese culture are the weird-ass Americans who come here.

-Myth-busted: Everyone speaks English in Tokyo.  False False False.

-Myths-certifiable: Subways are virtually silent.  People queue up in an orderly fashion to get in them unless there is a rush and then people push each other.  All billboards are cartoons.  Asian porn is plentiful, accessible and grrrrrossssss.

Today we are going to go find the dude we are staying with for the rest of the time.  It is extremely expensive to get around this city, and just as confusing for a first timer.  So this should be an expensive adventure.

In other news Amit just realized that this is the fatherland of Ninja Warrior and Most Xtreme Elimination Challenge. He is happiest I’ve seen him so far.

Hasta luego,
Andie