Thursday, July 31--Arrival

Our 14-hour flight from D.C. turned out to be only about 12-1/2 hours, and we had no problems at all. Clearing customs, even with Alina, went very smoothly. Our sponsor met us (armed with a cooler full of drinks and chocolate!), loaded us into a van, and whisked us to our hotel.

I know Japanese hotel rooms are small--we experienced that in Tokyo last summer. But when we opened the door of our room, the thought of spending several weeks here while we process in made the walls close in even more. The room itself is probably 11 feet square, and there is hardly room to bring in our suitcases. There is a twin bed on the left, a desk attached to the wall on the bed’s right side, and next to that is what can only be described as a twin-and-a half size bed. I think the Japanese actually consider this a queen bed. This bed is crammed securely between the desk and the wall—I had to stand in the middle of the bed and pull with both hands to get the sheets turned down for the night. I’ve no idea how they get the sheets on the bed. Jim and I cannot both lay on our backs at the same time—if he wants to sleep on his back, I must lay on my side. The only way for me to get out of bed since I sleep on the right (wall) side is to slide up to the top until I can get out from under the covers, then shimmy down and exit off the foot of the bed. Once I get out of the bed, I have to dodge the refrigerator, on which is perched a small television. The television stations are limited—we have CNN-Japan, which is broadcast in English. The Discovery Channel and History Channel offer selected programs in English—all others are in Japanese. Channel 2 offers relaxing music and videos of beautiful scenery—unless you’d rather put 100 yen in the box bolted to the side of the TV for 10 minutes of “adult programming.”

The bathroom is a deathtrap--I think it is a bit smaller than the typical American half-bath, but the toilet has a giant control panel on the side, and there is a bathtub crammed in there as well. The tub sides are about 30 inches high—would probably be great for soaking, but is a bit too much of an athletic challenge for normal showering. There is a huge sign plastered to the door warning you to keep the door closed when showering so “not cause a fire alarm to ring.” This is because 30 seconds after turning on the shower, the steam causes a fog bank worthy of the creepiest horror movie. On the plus side, there is a heated portion of the mirror right above the sink that absolutely will not fog up, no matter how long you stay in there! Given my natural grace (NOT!), the worst feature is the fact that the whole bathroom is raised about 4 inches higher than the floor of the rest of the room—must remember to step up during middle of the night bathroom runs! If I tripped on the step and fell forward, I would bang my left leg on the toilet, crack my ribs and left elbow on the sink, and bust out my teeth on the edge of the tub.

Please let the processing go quickly so we can move into our house!!