pdscomp's Journal: Tuesday, 13 Janurary 2004 10:40 PM JST

I'm writing this from my room in the Tokyo-yoyogi Youth Hostel... In Japan!!! We arrived at Narita Airport around 4:30 PM local time, and then spent an hour wandering around the airport taking care of things like exchanging money and getting our rail passes. The airport didn't quite feel like Japan yet though... Everything was subtitled in three or more languages (Japanese, Korean and English typically). We decided on attempting the train ride to our hostel rather than hailing a cab as the train was the cheapest route. Three hours and several exchanges later, we ended up close but not quite at our youth hostel. We decided to hire a taxi to go the last few miles as taxi drivers are very good at finding places and we had to check in by 10 PM.

The Yoyogi youth hostel is part of the National Olympics Memorial Youth Center thingy, so once we actually got here it took us another 30 minutes to actually find the right building. After the check-in process (in which we all had to buy memberships to the Hostelling International Association for 2,800 Yen. Now we can stay in any hostels around the world for the next year at prices of around 3,000 yen a night ($30). It turns out we all got single rooms, which are actually quite cozy. There is a bed and a small table and a place to hang things. Not bad at all... The bathrooms for each floor are located down the hall (just like at college park). My room is on the first floor, and Sang and Liz's rooms are on the second floor. The only problem is, men aren't allowed onto the womens' floors and vice versa. So, we have to make sure to establish meeting times in a place we can both go otherwise we won't be able to keep track of each other.

My first hot Japanese meal consisted of chunks of fried chicken, rice balls and thin noodles. And I got it... From a vending machine! That's right... They have vending machines here where you put money in, press a button and wait 90 seconds and it will give you a piping hot meal. It's a little expensive for what you get, but for that late night craving it can't be beat. I'm taking pictures of everything, so I have a record of how all this stuff looks. Tomorrow we're going to explore the area around the youth hostel, and are meeting at 8:50 AM. This is mainly because we have to leave the hostel between the hours of 9 and 5 PM. But we can leave our heavy bags here, which is good. I should be going, it's almost time for lights out. Until next time... Itte kimasu!