いよいよ 出発！ Finally, Departure!

[This is an unfinished post]

I'm sitting now in my hotel room at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku, one of Tokyo's busiest districts.  Shinjuku's train station, last time I heard, is technically the busiest in the world according to number of people using it each day.

I personally don't think there is too much I can write about my journey here.  The flight: it was long (4 in-flight movies + TV shows).  The arrival: it was organized (JET people every 10 yards pointing you were to go).  The bus trip to Tokyo: semi-impressive (rice patty, building, rice patty, buildings, taller buildings, even taller buildings, and then finally some fancy Tokyo landmarks like Tokyo tower).  My travel colleagues: pretty cool.  The first three people I sit down with at the gate in DC happened to be my neighbors for both of my flights.  Yup. Row 62 A, B, C.  62A was me with the window seat (yes!), 62B was Ashley Spute (also coincidentally the person I sat next to at orientation), and 62C was Greg Stevens (coincidentally former classmates with my brother's fiance).

After we settled into our hotel, Greg and I ventured out into western Shinjuku to find a raman shop, check out the cell phones (yes, they have Droids here too), tour a Manga Cafe (you can get a private stall with a computer, TV, and access to a manga library and some food), and just take in the sights and sounds of the city.

Tomorrow we start orientation, business suits and all! OK. That's three blog posts in the last hour. Enough. Also, WAAAAY too many parentheses in this post.