Well here I am! The flight was terribly long, and my thrilled attitude about aiplane travel has been quashed pretty quickly. i hope i don:t have too many more flights that are so long, though i know that i do.

i sat with two lovely japanese women who spoke not a word of english. we stuggled a bit and enjoyed each otehrs attempts. finally we approached japan and then i saw land! the window seat paid off after about 9 hours of travel - glad i went so early to the airport ot check in! i was amazed at the landscape, it:s so well cultivateed and designed. there is agricultural development everywhere and i was shocked to see at least a dozen very well groomed golfcourses, huge ones too, and no cars parked in their lots... not too popular? we arrived and i checked through customs without any trouble, gotmy visa easily. my japanese friend akiko wasn:t waiting for me when i emerged, but she came a bit later: she thought i was at another terminal. next we had to try and connect with andrew, who apparenltly landed another terminal, we didn]t quite figure this out for awhile. we made it out to akikos house via the CRAZY subway system. it took about 2 hours to get home from the airport. we arrived, late, to a wonderful japanese sushi dinner that akikos mother had prepared. very tasty food! self rolled sushi and other delicacies, very delicious indeed! drew and i went to bed in our apartment (a neighbour lent us his vacant apartment for two weeks!) around 7am pacific time (11pm here). what a loing day!
i got up early today, around 6, and caught up with some things. drew woke up around 830 and we got ready to go downtown with akiko around 930. she went to work and drew and i caught up with ryan, a chap from castlegar teaching english over here. he was thrilled to see us and we him, and we spent several hours touring the subway and various stops. we saw the famous shinjuku square, which is the busiest intersection for pedestrians in the world, apparently the morning is incredible ~ a sea of people. we ate sushi in a tiny little restaurant, very good, and only 950yen, which is about 9.50US. everything is expensive here, but the city is so beautiful and clkean. the people are friendly and very well dressed, eager to talk, though i can]t say much. arrigato is my favourite and most frequently used word. not too useful... thankyou...
after ryan left for wrok we met up with akiko again and toured around, seeing a temple and the famous tokyo station, where there is an underground mall that spreads out almost as far as you can see! so many levels too. the subway is truly a nightmare for foreigners, since romangi isn]t widely used and the kangi and hirgana are imperceptibly tough. right now we:re in electric city where digital thingys are abundant and the neon stretches far. i think this is where i will end. tonight we are going to an allyoucandrink bar and then perhaps to a night club, tomorrow we go camping in the interior, the back monday to climb fuji. i will post agian after that.

erik