track our trek

translation: "could you repeat that?" lol!... after a twelve hour flight from LA, we managed to pick up our JR passes and get tickets for the train from narita airport to shinjuku where we're spending our first 2 nights in tokyo! we've made it to japan! (btw, for any of you who are thinking of travelling to japan, you may want to consider getting a japan rail pass...they are expensive, but pay for themselves quickly if you intend to do a lot of travelling by train.) we spent $247 per person for 7 day passes...you can see why we'll be taking the express 8-day tour of japan! don't want to blow the whole trip budget in the first 2 weeks! we'll see some major attractions, check out the night life in tokyo and make tracks...so far my memory of 5 or 6 important phrases has gotten us around ok...i'm sure that won't last a lot longer! (hello, thank you, excuse me, good night & nice to meet you do not make much of a conversation!) we feel pretty lame for not knowing any other languanges as fluently as most japanese know english. hopefully we'll pick up a functional grasp of some language other than my rusty german and daryll's rusty spanish & french over the next year!

we were a bit delirious when we got in last night & shinjuku is like times square meets vegas! talk about sensory overload! it was all we could do to check in, sit still for a minute & call our parents to let them know we arrived safely before we passed out! now we're settled and we've had a decent night's rest at our hotel...http://www.nshotel.com/top/index_mac.htm... we've got an internet deal on a double room for $100 and change per night. we opted for a hotel stay the first couple nights to recover from the trip. we'll be on the lonely planet forum in search of cheaper accommodations this afternoon for sure! lol!

our body clocks are a little off...that's why i was up at 5:30 am with all sorts of energy to post this entry! but we're headed out to explore soon, so we'll have lots more to share in a few! stay tuned...