First Afternoon in Japan

The first thing I see when we emerged from the underground.

Breathtaking

However, to get here:

(Relaxing outside at the San Fran airport while waiting for my next flight.)

Well.

Two of my classmates somehow got lost in the airport and ended up on the complete opposite side from our meeting point.

Which meant the first several hours of my time in Japan were spent sitting in the airport waiting for everyone to regroup.

Honestly impressive, considering airports already feel like giant mazes designed by people who hate clear signage.

Ironically, this completely destroyed my carefully planned “Stay Awake Until 10pm” anti-jetlag strategy, because by the time everything got sorted out, I’d already spent hours functioning on airport energy alone.

And then I got to wait for my data plan to activate.

So my first afternoon in Japan mostly consisted of:

• waiting,
• waiting,
• and staring at my phone hoping it would decide to connect to the internet.

Not exactly cinematic, but definitely memorable. 

Being stuck in the airport with my group has its advantages, though. Got to know some of them, jumped between conversations and such. It was nice. 

And the trains

The legroom! Someone fit a whole stroller between the seats! (I didn't photograph it for privacy reasons, but still!)

It was smooth as butter! No jerky motions to activate my motion sickness, just sliding across the rails.