Kai Takes a Ride in a Gyroscope

This photo is from a few weeks ago, when Kai and I visited just one of many science museums in Tokyo. This one is near the royal palace and the Budakan, and even though it's a bit older, I love the way everything is constructed by hand with beautiful engineering and design. Definitely worth a visit, and we need to go back to experience the half that we were not able to get to in one afternoon.

Subway Etiquette

I have been smiling about this poster for some time. At first, I thought it was just a reminder not to be a slob. But then I noticed that the young man is looking at the ladies in the magazine and his pants look rather large, and I remembered reading about complaints that guys in the subway looking at porn magazines and video. Yuck!

Earthquake City

I just realized that I've felt three earthquakes in the seven days since we arrived here.  The most recent one was just an hour or so ago, and our 14th floor apartment swayed for at least 10 seconds.  The glasses and plates in the kitchen cupboard rattled and we all grabbed our chairs. Coming from California, the idea of earthquakes is not foreign to us, but Tokyo seems to be a whole new level of earthquake activity.  Just think, in 1923 there was the Great Kanto earthquake that killed 140,000 people in this region.  And the 1995 earthquake in Kyoto killed 6,400 people.

There are some very strict earthquake engineering standards for buildings in Japan, which is reassuring.  But then there's the case of the architect who falsified earthquake protection reports for something like 20 high rise residential buildings in various Japanese cities.  Certainly, living in an old wooden house in this city would not be advisable.

When I considered all the earthquake factors and our lifestyle, I decided that we could live in an older building as long as it has been inspected and retrofitted as necessary.  But I was insistent that we not live higher than the fifth floor -- we ended up with an apartment on the fourth floor for our permanent apartment.  Yeah, I'll miss the city views we get from our temporary digs, but overall I'd like to be closer to the ground.

Getting Situated

Today was our second full day in Tokyo, and already it's starting to feel more familiar. Oh, but what a huge change from our million acres of national forest! We started with brunch at the ANA/Intercontinental Hotel, a large and very expensive buffet, so we loaded up on both American and Japanese breakfast. Kai and I also ventured out to the market and picked up some goodies to stock our kitchen. We had a great time wandering the aisles and decoding the labels. While we were there I noticed an American woman being shown around by a Japanese woman, who I think must have been giving the American an orientation of some kind. I guess I've already passed that part of the program. That reminds me, though, that I need to get cracking on my Japanese language instruction. I am remembering more and more Japanese but I really need some structured learning so that I can start to converse rather than just understanding bits and pieces here and there. All of us ventured out this afternoon on the subway to Omotesando and enjoyed the crush at KiddyLand, and on the way home we had to try out some of the vending machines on the street. All lots of fun but quite tiring.

Here at Last

Wow! What a journey.  We left California yesterday at 7:30 a.m. after Uncle Richard stopped by to drive us to the airport.  After he got a glimpse of our pile of luggage he understood why we needed to take the big truck to the airport -- 9 suitcases!  We took Alaska Airlines to Seattle on a small turboprop, and then transferred onto our ride to Tokyo Narita -- an Airbus A330, a very nice airplane.  We all watched lots of movies but didn't get much sleep since we were in the coach section.  I finally got to see August Rush, which was at our local Quincy theater just a few weeks ago but I was too busy to see it.  After traveling over 5000 miles, we finally landed at Narita airport and had no problems at all getting through immigration and customs and getting our visas stamped for three years.  We also declared all our household belongings that are being shipped from California.

The worst part of the whole trip was the interminable bus trip from Narita to downtown Tokyo.  Those last 10 miles (oops, I need to start thinking in kilometers) were in very heavy traffic, and the whole thing took 2 hours.  The bus took us to the ANA Intercontinental Hotel, and from there we piled our luggage and ourselves into two taxis and finally found the temporary apartment.  The tour of the apartment by the desk manager was a blur, and we watched a bit of Anthony Bourdain's show in Tahiti before we tumbled into bed at 9 p.m.  That was 6 a.m. California time, a full 24 hours since we got up to leave yesterday.

Oh what a different world this is, even seen at night from our fourteenth floor apartment -- lights everywhere!  When my brain is a little less fried I'll get photos to post.

Last Weekend Home

After a few moments of being frozen in front of the headlights, I managed to get organized yesterday and complete a large number of items on my to do list. And then I went out with my sister to our local theater to see a movie. Now if I can just finish up one big memo for work that will get people working on tasks for a project we're finishing, I can go off the radar at work for a week and finish everything up, get on the plane, and have the luxury of a four-day weekend to adjust to being in Japan.

Oooh, I just remembered that I need to go to the bank and get a large amount of cash in Yen to take with us to Japan. You need Yen to open an account there, and cash is used a lot more in general. I'll add that to the list.