Arrival in Japan

So after landing at the airport, we hit the ATM, bought our rail tickets to our hostel, and made our way into the city. The airport is way out in the suburbs (I think to the NE) kind of Denver-style and we rode through some nice countryside before getting into town and buildings. Once we got there, we switched to the subway and arrived in our neighborhood called Akasusa or something like that. We got a little lost trying to find our hostel in the assortment or mid-sized building (5-10 stories) with bad addresses and a weird system. One benefit of the episode was getting acquainted with our neighborhood and specificially all of the food establishments it offered.

After checking into our hostel and getting cleaned up from our long travel excursions we went out for an evening to grab dinner and see some sights within walking distance. We ate at Denny's which had descent food but horrible service. They basically forgot about us and we had to walk up and ask for our check. My spaghettil al-carbonara was pretty descent and Fernando had rice with beef curry. After dinner we wandered the streets, visited the local shrine, saw some shopping things, and tried to soak in Japan for the first time. My first impressions were that the city is amazingly quiet and clean for being so big and that Japanese people are very kind and respectful. I really admire their culture. OK, more to come. Trying to get caught up on my blog entries.