Six Gaijin

KATE: Day 0.5 of Japan? :D

Friday, March 28, 9:22 PM

Ahaha I had an adventure already xD

After a ridiculous amount of travel (resulting in me typing “amoung ot” just now, for instance) we arrived at our hotel in Tokyo. Both mine and Sandra’s moms decided that they were too tired and went straight to bed, but Dad, Zach, Sandra and I went to go eat something quick at a little café in the restaurant.

I chose not to speak and Japanese at the time, so there was a mixup with the words “hold tomatoes” (on a club sandwich) and “hot milk”. In the end…he didn’t care and ate the tomatoes anyway xD SO we get back to our hotel rooms (Mom and Dad are in one room, Zach and I in another) and I am halfway through changing into my PJs (the bottom half, to anyone concerned) before realizing that I left my retainer wrapped in some napkins on the table.

LOL @ K8

Now to anyone who doesn’t know, there is a severe lack of dental hygiene in Japan. So I didn’t expect them to know what a retainer was, not that I knew the Japanese term for it anyway.  So, although I had decided that this time I WOULD be using Japanese to make my situation clearer…I had no idea what to say.

Until! On the elevator on the way down, I recalled an An Café comment I’d seen. Miku is shocked to find out that musical instruments use the same word – “MAUSUPIISU” – for the mouthpiece as a boxing mouthpiece.

So I hurried down and informed them (in Japanese) that I had forgotten my pink mouthpiece that was in some napkins (just wrote blankets on accident, guess who’s tired). They rushed around a bit before our waitress hurried out victoriously claiming, “ATTA!”

They handed it to me, I put it in my mouth (wondering a moment later if it had been in the trash…) and went upstairs and now I’m in pajamas on a bed with all my teeth in the right place :D

Happy endings ftw

Greetings from Tokyo!

We got here last night after a 10 hour flight, 1.5 hours through customs, then a 2.5 hour bus ride through Tokyo rush hour traffic.  We were BEAT!

This morning (it's Saturday here) we had a very yummy breakfast in our hotel, then walked to a Buddhist temple up the street.  It's a GORGEOUS day here (quite possibly the nicest one we'll have) and the cherry blossoms are in bloom all over the place.

In the immigration line at the airport there was a very feisty old Japanese lady from Los Angeles in line with us.  "What are you doing in the foreigner line?" I asked her. 

"I'm a naturalized American citizen," she said, with a fairly strong Japanese accent. 

"It must be weird to have to come here and get in the foreigner line."

"Nah, I do it 3 or 4 times a year.  I'm used to it."

We chatted a bit. Told her we were from Seattle.  "Seattle's nice," she said.  "I go up there some times to go to the opera."  (Dang, who IS this old lady?  She's putting me to shame.)

"You picked a great time to come here," she said.  "The cherry blossoms are perfect right now."

"We have cherry blossoms in Seattle," I said.

"Yeah, we do in LA, too." she said.  "But here it's different.  Here, they're DEDICATED."

I thought of her today as we walked around Zojoji Temple.  The cherry blossoms were amazing.  Like nothing I've ever seen.  They gave the whole place a fairy-tale quality. 

About to gear up for a big trip to Ueno Park, then Shinjuku district for some shopping, then Shibuya district for a concert!  See ya later!

P.S.  Remind me to tell you about the toilets here.  HEAVENLY!