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This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Teh Internets are Down.

Sorry, we've been having some trouble with the hotel's internet connection, so we haven't been able to upload any pictures. It seems to be working better now, so we'll try to get some posts up tonight or tomorrow. We've been to a lot of different places, and we've got plenty of pictures!

The plane ride

Back-tracking a bit here... Here are pictures from the plane ride. It was 13 hours long... and pretty much felt 13 hours long. Our layover was in Chicago. We went from Cleveland (CLE), to Chicago (ORD) to Tokyo (NRT).



This was the plane... A 777-200. It was huge. This is a description of the plane... We had seats near the very back. (For you LOST fans, that would have made us tailies.) Look at those first class seats. They lay flat into beds. That's downright excessive. Wonder how much they cost.


Narita (NRT - Tokyo's airport) is a hub for a lot of asian flights, apparently. Many people were flying to Hong Kong from Narita, which is another 3 short hours away.



This is Ryan tinkering with the entertainment system. There was a choice of several movies, which you could watch anytime, or you could listen to music.

I watched The Dark Knight and did not like it. Heath Ledger was great, I admit, but the movie was too long and I lost interest at a few points. And that low, raspy voice of Batman's was completely unncessary. OK, movie rant is over.

On the monitor, you could always look at the flight's progress. This was about 2 hours or so into the flight - we're flying over Canada.

Here we are flying over Alaska. You can't see it, but I'm giving Sarah Palin the finger.

And, jumping ahead several hours, here were are at Narita Airport.

I don't know why I'm making this face, but here I am with my new awesome yen.

We had a wonderful day yesterday with our new friend, Masako... I will make a post about our day with her tomorrow. We had a fantastic time and she was so sweet. <3

This is the cool view that we have from our hotel window... Our hotel is very quiet, despite all the excitement going on outside. We have an awesome 7-11 right across the street.




ITADAKIMASU!

This is Ryan about to enjoy some food from a convenience store. The food was excellent, and very cheap. I got Fanta Melon soda (Fanta is very popular here), and Ryan got Pocari Sweat (it's kind of like Gatorade).

Tsui ni Nihon Jouriku!

We're here, we're safe, and it was a surprisingly painless experience getting through customs. :) But we're both exhausted, so we're headed to 7-Eleven for food and drink galore (it's half past 6 in the evening here, and according to the laptop's clock (and some simple math), that means it's 4:30 in the morning back home. We already have some nice pictures and even some video (the video might have to wait until we get home), so stay tuned!

Ryan's Geeky Haunts (I hope!)

A few places I'd like to check out at least once (the first two are in Akihabara, so literally minutes away from the hotel):

Super Potato - THE retro gaming superstore in Tokyo.
Yodobashi Camera - 9 floors of electronics. Yeah. NINE FLOORS.
Chiba Kanteidan - Games, CDs, DVDs, manga... I hope to spend a long time here.

That's all I've got for now, but stay tuned for more... especially once we're there!

places we're going, part one

Cat Cafes (there's a small cover charge, but you can play with the cafe's cats!)
Ghibli Animation Museum
Suginami and Toei Animation Museums
Kitaro Tea House
Inokashira Park (a nice park where you can rent a canoe or a swan cycle-boat!)
Yoyogi Park
Fuji Television Headquarters
Akihabara