The Plane Diaries

June 20th, 8:35 AM, Tokyo Time
I’m on my plane right now. I won’t actually post this until I get off the plane because I don’t actually have internet connection on it. I’ve been on the plane about three hours or so now. Singapore Air is pretty nice. Each seat has a TV screen with movies, TV and video games to play. I spent most of the time so far playing Super Mario World from the original Nintendo before the man next to me (Basil) asked me if my TV was working for movies. Turns out my whole row (Me, Basil, and his wife Eileen) have dysfunctional TVs for the on demand movies. A bit of a shame because there are quite a few movies I want to watch. Anyway, I’ll probably just try to beat all of Super Mario before the end of the flight. How long could it take?

1:25 PM
I went back to try and beat Super Mario Brothers and my game was not saved, so I had to start over. I just gave up finally. I got to the second to last level and got too frustrated.
On the other hand, the food has been great! The first meal was Unagi-don, eel on top of rice, with zensai (a mixture of appetizers including tsukemono and a piece of what sort of tasted like Grandma’s chicken recipe, but not as good), cold soba with dipping sauce, and a mini Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Pictures below. The other meal was yakisoba.
Oh and of course I had a few Asahi’s on the plane. I’m not one to turn down free drinks

6:35 PM
I have arrived in Tokyo! I am sitting on the bus right on the way to the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku to meet up with Chihei Umeda, who will then take me to the Kadoya Hotel a few blocks away for the night. I got through customs pretty easily, and even ordered by “Rimusine” ticket all by myself…IN JAPANESE! For those of you who don’t understand what a Rimusine is, Rimusine is actually supposed to be “Limousine”, and its what they call their buses that go from airport to hotels. Crazy punctual! I was pretty short on words when I ordered my ticket, but I was able to convey that I wanted to go to Keio Plaza and was able to figure out that it left in four minutes and that it would cost 3000 Yen (~$30).
PS: They talk SO fast.

6:58 PM
Its dark outside and I can’t really see very the landscape so well. I’m tired but I refuse to go to sleep for fear for failing to wake up when I reach the hotel.