Arrival

We arrived on Friday night at around 8:30.  Had lunch with Michael in NY on Thursday before heading out to JFK for the flight.  Things did not start out auspiciously.  When we got to the ticket counter, we were told that the aircraft had been changed due to maintenance.  Although the ultimate accommodations were all right, one of the reasons to fly out of JFK is that they fly newer and better planes on that route.  Well not on Thursday night they didn't.  But no big deal.  A bigger deal was Andrea going through security and being told that the scanner registered something in (their words) her "nether region."  She was required to have a pat down search, which would have been ok but the one person TSA had for that terminal was out that day.  The supervisor called to have someone come from another terminal to do the pat down.  We waited and waited.  It was mildly infuriating and neither of us had any confidence that anyone would arrive.  Finally after 25 minutes a woman arrived and performed the requisite search.  We were on our way.

Fortunately our experience at the Tokyo could not have been better.  We arrived 30 minutes early, we were able to pick up Andrea's cell phone right as that desk was closing and there was an immediate bus to our hotel.

Saturday morning we took a bus into Tokyo, and met our friends Mark and Lisa at our hotel at about 8 o'clock.  We headed directly to the fish market at Tsukiji where we enjoyed a great breakfast of raw fish, miso soup and rice at a 10-seater hole in the wall that probably serves about the freshest fishyou could expect to find.  Spent time wandering around th largest commercial fish market in the world, seeing species of fish for sale that none of us knew even existed.  Then it was off to the electronics district of Akihabara to help re-inflate the Japanese economy.  Several hours, 4 cameras and several other electronics' devices later, we headed back to our hotel.  The store we visited (Yodobashi) was incredible - 8 floors full of all sorts of consumer electronics with a Ginza-like feeling of energy and excitement.

A quiet dinner not far from our hotel (specializing in grilled eel) and we were ready for bed.  Mark and I had drink on Japanese whisky in the hotel bar, which had a little bit of a Bill Murray, Lost in Translation feel to it peering out as it does from the 27th floor of a high rise above Tokyo Station.

Today it is off to Kyoto for a night at an onsen (hot spring) north of the city.  Should be wonderful, with the only dark cloud being a pretty substantial chance of rain.  Will travel by Shinkansen, which s always a pleasure.