I'm Alive!

AKA I've made it in one piece to Japan! The treck started this morning with an early trip to O'Hare, catching our flight that departed at 10:20am on November 25th. We then traveled to the future and landed around 2:30pm on the 26th, after 13 hours or so of flight time. The flight was a little bumpy, but pretty smooth overal. The food was impressive, considering American in-flight food standards (ahem, not very good), and time was split between napping, reading, writing, and watching Cars 2. We landed smoothly, managed to get through customs without too much of a hassle (they had these finger print things that none of us could figure out. You had to place your index fingers on the pads, press down, and hold until it took your picture), and then withdrew/exchanged dollars for yen. I have decided that Japanese yen are much more pretty than American dollars. Anywho...from there, it was onto the bus to the hotel! The ride was relatively uneventful, but involved a lot of picture taking and a beautiful sunset.
We arrived at the hotel, which is pretty classy, considering the fact that we're a group of college kids. The lobby is beautiful, all decorated for the holidays. We felt extremely underdressed in our comfy travel clothes, watching men in suits and women in dresses wandering about. Our instructors gave us 20 minutes to get situated in our rooms before we met up again, when they showed us the convenience store and took us out into the district. From there, they set us off on our own. The group I was with went off for dinner, going into a noodle place. I was baffled by the ordering system: you look at the images outside, pick one, and pay for it at a vending machine-esque station. It gives you a ticket, which you take to the counter. They then make your order, and call it out when it's ready. Which would be fine, if I knew any Japanese. It was a lot of guessing on our part, in terms of picking up the orders. In the end, we all got our food and it was delicious. I got soba noodles and some sort of sweet, fried fish (at least, I think it was fish). I'm so excited for more Japanese cuisine: I forgot how much I enjoyed the flavor base of good, authentic asian food.
Laura and I retired early, returning to the hotel to get settled and prep for the week ahead. I'll be uploading photos from the day to Facebook this evening, so feel free to check those out. Anywho, Day 1 is complete! The real adventure starts tomorrow!