The Flight - June 21
We spent most of the day traveling. The trip was complicated by a change of plans in the weeks leading up to the trip. We had orignally planned to drive down to LA and leave a car down there full of stuff (ideally bulky cosplay for Anime Expo). For this reason, we scheduled our flight to Japan as a roundtrip from LAX. However, when cosplay plans never materialized we decided we didn't want to drive all the way to LA just to fly back up. We tried to just let the airlines know that we wouldn't be on the first flight and simply get on in SFO, where we had a small layover, but complications with our booking (through Cheap-o-air) prevented that from working in any cheap and/or convenient way. In favor of convenience we found ourselves flying down to LAX just so we could catch our flight back to SFO and avoid having our flight to Japan cancelled. Luckily, this meant that Brian was around with a spare boarding pass when Tim ended up showing up at the airport with neither a boarding pass nor phone. Brian, Kirt and I had some fun finding him at first, but everything worked out.
The flight on Japan Airlines was an interesting, albeit uncomfortable, experience. This was the longest flight I had ever been on, and unfortunately the most cramped. On subsequent flights with Southwest, I realized that I had less legroom on the ten-hour JAL flight than on the hour long Bay Area-LA flights. On top of this, I was wearing my jeans the whole time, which kept riding up and strangling my legs. I was on the aisle seat, so at least I could stretch one leg from time to time, and the length of the flight meant that getting up and walking around was also an option. The general discomfort meant that I never was able to really sleep, but the in-flight entertainment helped dull the boredom. I particularly enjoyed some of the J-pop playlists that they had available. I watched Tangled and No String Attached on the flight over, and was sufficiently entertained by both.
When we finally arrived in Haneda Airport we got through customs without any problems, though there were a few "This is your only bag?" comments. We packed light. We took the Tokyo Monorail to the JR Yamanote Line (山手線), which we took to Ikebukuro Station (池袋駅) and continued on to the Sakura Hotel, where we stayed for the first night. The man at the desk spoke great English and we were able to get in no problem.
The room was traditional Japanese-style: tatami mat floors with four beds spread on the ground. There wasn't room for much besides a table on the floor besides the beds, but it wasn't really an issue. The beds were essentially a mattress on the ground with a fitted sheet, with a comforter on top with another fitted sheet around the bottom of it. There was a sink with toothbrushes and toothpaste for everyone (I never ended up needing the toothbrush I brought the entire trip) as well as a shower. In a separate room was the toilet. Most toilets in Japan have a flush handle that can be turned in both directions: one for a big flush (labeled 大) and one for a small flush (labeled 小). I really liked this idea, but the other cool thing was that the top of the tank essentially had a sink built into it. When you flush the water goes through the faucet and into a hole in the top of the tank, then into the toilet as usual. This allows you to essentially use the toilet water to rinse your hands, which is great for #1.
We went to bed shortly after arriving as it was around midnight as we hadn't gotten as much sleep as we expected to on the plane.
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