Wow, I am lazy!

I can't believe that my trip is less than a week from ending and I haven't update this blog once! Bah! Figures. I always say I am going to keep a journal but I either forget or am too tired to put a coherent thought together. It has mostly been the latter. Walking 8+ hours a day tends to wear out a person who is used to sitting behind a desk all day. On the plus side, I have probably lost 5+ lbs.

Anyway, I suppose I should start with how my trip started. In a word, splendid. It has been nice just to be on vacation; frankly, I could have sat at home for three weeks and been just as happy to be able to relax. All in all, I am really glad I came. The 15.5 hour air time to get here was worth it! (Yes, that is correct. 2.5 hours from Orlando to Houston and then 13 hours from Houston to Narita. Good god, that was a long flight).

Just so it is noted, one should NOT try on jeans after such a long flight. I will tell you from personal experience that it is not a good idea. Unless, of course, you are a masochist. Taka's mom took us to Uniqlo (pretty much the Japanese Gap) right after we got into Akabane from Narita (which was about 2 hours after we landed). I think it was a combination of the fact that Taka wanted jeans and his mom was afraid I was going to freeze on the way home. What can I say, I live in Florida. We don't have winter. More on clothes shopping later.

That is really all to report on my first day in Japan. It consisted mostly of holding back tears in a dressing room, stumbling about an unfamiliar house, trying to keep Taka's parents' dog from humping my leg and somehow making it to the futon before I collapsed from exhaustion. And the kicker was that we had to get up at 5 AM the next morning so we could catch the shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto. But, that deserves its own post.