Here's me posing with what I thought was our plane. However, our plane came 2 hours late(r) and was much bigger and I was too tired to pose again. I survived the 10 hour flight and am now at the hotel in Tokyo. When our plane finally landed, after a 2 hour delay in San Francisco, we all applauded. I've never been so glad to get back to the ground. The flight wasn't as bad as I expected and I had opportunities to meet other teachers during the bathroom breaks when everyone congregated at the exit rows. The captain made an announcement of our group on board which made us feel even more special. To top that, when the stewardess came with the cart drink, she noticed that we were teachers with the Japan FMF group and gave us all Japanese beer because she said we deserved it! Kampai! So, some first impressions of Toyko: 1) the weather is my idea of perfect--73 degrees with just a touch of wind...hopefully the rainy season will hold out just a little longer; 2) things are alot greener than I expected and not as hectic and crowded as I had imagined; 3) people are very friendly and very very formal...I feel like a slob in my "plane clothes".
I have a very nice hotel room, with 2 twin beds if anyone cares to join me....I have room!! We will have our own hotel room for the remainder of the time here, which is nice and kind of lonely at the same time. I just got back from eating with a former Japanese Fulbright Scholar who studied in the United States. He took us to a typical restaurant and luckily the menu was in English & Japanese. I've already committed my first faux paus. I thought I had read up on all things that I could screw up, but in my jet lagged-sleep deprived state, I forgot and walked with my shoes where I shouldn't have. Let me explain...when entering a restaurant, you take you shoes off and then immediately step up onto a ledge which is clean, and then bend down and pick up your shoes (on the dirty floor) which are placed in lockers next to the door. I did this perfectly, but when we were leaving, I grabbed my shoes out of the locker and then immediately landed them on the "clean" floor and stepped right into my flip-flops, which are then making the clean floor dirty. Anyway, I was supposed to walk bare-footed to the ledge of the clean floor, drop my shoes down to the dirty floor, and then step down. Confused???? Yeah, me too! I'm going to bed...
I have a very nice hotel room, with 2 twin beds if anyone cares to join me....I have room!! We will have our own hotel room for the remainder of the time here, which is nice and kind of lonely at the same time. I just got back from eating with a former Japanese Fulbright Scholar who studied in the United States. He took us to a typical restaurant and luckily the menu was in English & Japanese. I've already committed my first faux paus. I thought I had read up on all things that I could screw up, but in my jet lagged-sleep deprived state, I forgot and walked with my shoes where I shouldn't have. Let me explain...when entering a restaurant, you take you shoes off and then immediately step up onto a ledge which is clean, and then bend down and pick up your shoes (on the dirty floor) which are placed in lockers next to the door. I did this perfectly, but when we were leaving, I grabbed my shoes out of the locker and then immediately landed them on the "clean" floor and stepped right into my flip-flops, which are then making the clean floor dirty. Anyway, I was supposed to walk bare-footed to the ledge of the clean floor, drop my shoes down to the dirty floor, and then step down. Confused???? Yeah, me too! I'm going to bed...
1 comment:
I think you should make Adam do that at you house just to grate on his nerves... and invite me to watch.
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