Here, safe and sound!
Jun. 1st, 2005 03:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sierciaAs you may already know from reading ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scirocco's journal, I am here, safe and sound. Severely underslept, but that's to be expected.
Flights were crowded but largely uneventful. The flight from LA to Tokyo was FULL of small children; I was surrounded by them. Unfortunately, the only misbehaving one was behind me, kicking my seat for most of the flight. You'll be amazed that I restrained myself from killing him. I know I am. I didn't get much sleep, but I got an astonishing amount of work done on the travel knititng project I brought with me =).
Got through customs, found my Carrie, took the train back to her place. Had the immigration guy think I was insane - I hadn't written down Carrie's address or Tokyo phone number, since she was meeting me at the airport, and I was supposed to have those for the visa form. He looked at me like I was STUPID when I knew neither the address or phone number of the friends I was supposed to visit. In retrospect, it probably was dumb to not have it, buit I would have tracked it down if I'd needed to.
My first impressions are that Tokyo is both incredibly foreign and incredibly not at the same time. On one level, it's a big city like Boston or NY or Chicago; sure some of the buildings are different, but that's true anywhere you travel. Since until travelling in Europe, I have no hope of figuring out any signs at all, I've already started tuning them out; they're of no interest or real use to me. The same thing is true for conversations around me, it all sounds like the teachers in a Charlie Brown cartoon.
We did go out and get dinner last night, so I've had my first taste of "weird" Japanese food. I put weird in quotes because it's only about half weird. Like, a sushi restaurant, but with odd vegetables. What I sampled off Carrie's plate was delicious, although I went with slightly safer udon noodles with my fish, since I was starving and wanted to make sure I ordered something I would like. There's plenty of room for experimenting later. I decided before I left though that I was going to not shy away from trying weird food on the trip, since for me that's part of the adventure.
So, despite being so tired that I almost couldn't stand up last night, my brain decied I should wake up at 3 this morning, which is why I'm finding time to post. Because my Carrie loves me, she went out and bought all the stuff so that I could make coffee, so I'm perched in her living room typing away, sipping coffee, ignoring the fact that it's 4:30 in the morning. (It didn't help that when I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep this morning, I thought, "I could just get up and play on the computer" and my brain helpfully started composing LJ entries for me. Once my stomach joined the fray, insisting that I NEEDED to eat, I knew I was done for.) We're going to the early morning fish market this morning, since I'm certainly awake enough for it, and then to have sashimi for breakfast (my kind of place, man!), and then, we think, to a folk house museum.
Tomorrow (Friday morning) we set off into the Japanese countryside for a four day trip outside Tokyo; I believe we'll be back on Monday. Tuesday, I know Carrie is taking me to her Tokyo Stitch and Bitch, I'm not sure what else we have planned. Whatever we end up doing, I'm sure I'm going to have a great time.
scirocco's journal, I am here, safe and sound. Severely underslept, but that's to be expected.Flights were crowded but largely uneventful. The flight from LA to Tokyo was FULL of small children; I was surrounded by them. Unfortunately, the only misbehaving one was behind me, kicking my seat for most of the flight. You'll be amazed that I restrained myself from killing him. I know I am. I didn't get much sleep, but I got an astonishing amount of work done on the travel knititng project I brought with me =).
Got through customs, found my Carrie, took the train back to her place. Had the immigration guy think I was insane - I hadn't written down Carrie's address or Tokyo phone number, since she was meeting me at the airport, and I was supposed to have those for the visa form. He looked at me like I was STUPID when I knew neither the address or phone number of the friends I was supposed to visit. In retrospect, it probably was dumb to not have it, buit I would have tracked it down if I'd needed to.
My first impressions are that Tokyo is both incredibly foreign and incredibly not at the same time. On one level, it's a big city like Boston or NY or Chicago; sure some of the buildings are different, but that's true anywhere you travel. Since until travelling in Europe, I have no hope of figuring out any signs at all, I've already started tuning them out; they're of no interest or real use to me. The same thing is true for conversations around me, it all sounds like the teachers in a Charlie Brown cartoon.
We did go out and get dinner last night, so I've had my first taste of "weird" Japanese food. I put weird in quotes because it's only about half weird. Like, a sushi restaurant, but with odd vegetables. What I sampled off Carrie's plate was delicious, although I went with slightly safer udon noodles with my fish, since I was starving and wanted to make sure I ordered something I would like. There's plenty of room for experimenting later. I decided before I left though that I was going to not shy away from trying weird food on the trip, since for me that's part of the adventure.
So, despite being so tired that I almost couldn't stand up last night, my brain decied I should wake up at 3 this morning, which is why I'm finding time to post. Because my Carrie loves me, she went out and bought all the stuff so that I could make coffee, so I'm perched in her living room typing away, sipping coffee, ignoring the fact that it's 4:30 in the morning. (It didn't help that when I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep this morning, I thought, "I could just get up and play on the computer" and my brain helpfully started composing LJ entries for me. Once my stomach joined the fray, insisting that I NEEDED to eat, I knew I was done for.) We're going to the early morning fish market this morning, since I'm certainly awake enough for it, and then to have sashimi for breakfast (my kind of place, man!), and then, we think, to a folk house museum.
Tomorrow (Friday morning) we set off into the Japanese countryside for a four day trip outside Tokyo; I believe we'll be back on Monday. Tuesday, I know Carrie is taking me to her Tokyo Stitch and Bitch, I'm not sure what else we have planned. Whatever we end up doing, I'm sure I'm going to have a great time.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-01 07:57 pm (UTC)I'm so excited for you, and looking forward to hearing about your adventures.
(if you're bored...)
So after reading Salon's article on the little boy who got kicked out of day care for biting, what's your opinion on the effectiveness of corporal punishment?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-02 09:13 pm (UTC)I haven't read the article, but my thoughts on corooral punishment are that it does have a place within the range of disciplines I'm willing to use with Widget. However, it's something to be used very sparingly - I think I've slapped her hand once and spanked her once in 4 + years. Generally, I think that it's not particularly effective, except as a way to completely reset the situation - the one time I spanked her, we were locking into the awful battle where she was physicalkly fighting me and screaming and being totally impossible, since she's getting big enough to be hard to manage physically. I spanked her, which surprised her so much she stopped fighting. When she burst into tears at being spanked I was able to console her about that, and then talk about what had been going on with the scene before it - it was like it took her thoughts off the battle so effectively that we were totally able to start over.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-03 11:15 pm (UTC)As usual, thoughtful and well explained. I pointed them to your post.
WOOT!
Date: 2005-06-01 07:59 pm (UTC)sashimi for breakfast. Mmmmmmmmm
Re: WOOT!
Date: 2005-06-02 09:07 pm (UTC)And I meant to pick up some melatonin and forgot =( I'd say I would try to find some here, but that's kind of laughable.
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Date: 2005-06-01 09:16 pm (UTC)Give lorac and W. a big hug for us!
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