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April 23, 2005
Sleep overdose
It's 5 a.m. and I'm wide awake though this time it isn't because of jet lag. Yesterday, after a lot of walking, we returned to our room around 4 and I lay down to take a nap. Adam wasn't able to fall asleep and read until 6 when he decided to take a quick nap. Next thing I knew I woke up and it was dark outside and when I looked at the clock it was 11. There was no point in doing anything at that point but it was not easy to sleep past 4. At any rate, to recap what we did yesterday--we went to Koishikawa Korakuen, a really nice garden and oasis not five minutes away from a knot of highways and overpasses. Then we went to Shinjuku where we walked over to the Tokyo Metropolitan Building which has two observatories. Viewing Tokyo from the observatories, you really get a sense of how huge Tokyo is--considerably bigger than New York City it seems and built at greater density believe it or not. At any rate, while it may not sound like it, yesterday's explorations involved a lot of walking and that combined with all the walking and standing at the Expo and the jet lag probably resulted in yesterday's extended nap.
Posted by Jennifer at 04:52 PM | Comments (2)
April 22, 2005
Japan, pt I
Thank goodness our hotel has computers with internet access and it's free! I have been so jet-lagged these first few days--let's hope it's temporary.
First off, I have to say that this will probably be my one and only trip to Asia if or this side of the Pacific only because of the plane ride. I can't handle 18 hours of travel time, especially when it involves 13 hours on a single flight with crappy in-flight entertainment and only one book (and not a super interesting one) to read (I ordered some books before we left but, unfortunately, they didn't arrive on time).
We flew into Nagoya, a city located between Tokyo and Kyoto. Don't know if you've noticed but flights to Nagoya have been really cheap these past few months (they just opened a new airport) which is why we decided to come to Japan. Our first lesson in Japan was that eating out will probably be more challenging than we anticipated. Most restaurants don't have English menus or menus with pictures (at least in Nagoya, although I wouldn't imagine that it would be much different elsewhere) and, unfortunately, since neither Adam nor I read Japanese we had to confine our dining selections to whatever place had either which wasn't easy to find. Our second lesson in Japan was that just about anything associated with train stations are confusing. They're really big and filled with people (at least the ones we've seen) and a lot of the employees don't speak English which makes things like buying tickets and finding out where to go quite difficult and we're probably relatively lucky in that Adam does speak a little Japanese.
The challenges aside, we've enjoyed Japan so far. It's a pretty fascinating country between the obsession with cuteness, the high value placed on politeness and courtesy, and Japanese television, among other things. Yesterday was spent at the World Expo which was pretty cool. Unfortunately, the more popular pavilions had really long wait times and I don't know that I would wait three hours in a line to meet the President much less a pavillion with a few minutes worth of eye candy so there were a number of sights that I wanted to see that we missed out on. But we still saw some pretty neat sights--My favorite was the Earth Room which you can see a picture of here. We also went to this pavillion with a # of cool robots, including what was essential a white stuffed toy baby seal that would respond lovingly as you pet it (so Japanese!). We left Nagoya last night and are now in Tokyo. I'm definitely excited about being in the city but am anxious about getting utterly lost between not knowing where to get out of the train stations (some of which have a million exits), not understanding Japanese addresses yet, and Tokyo supposedly being just a really confusing place for tourists!
Posted by Jennifer at 11:30 AM | Comments (0)
April 19, 2005
Leaving for Japan
I realize I've been really bad about posting lately but hopefully my accounts of Japan will make up for that. No promises about posting while we're away but hopefully opportunities will arise. In the meantime, wish Adam and I a happy anniversary!
Speaking of marriage, this guy claims to have developed a set of equations that enables them to predict, with over 90 percent accuracy, what will happen to a relationship over a three-year period. Intriguing...
Posted by Jennifer at 09:05 PM | Comments (0)