So, I'm in Tokyo. I woke up at 6am today after five hours of sleep. Must be the jet lag thingy.

This is where they're putting us up. It's not quite fifty floors, and there's a pretty amazing view of the city from the top. And there's some weird coating on part of the bathroom mirrors such that there's a little rectangle that doesn't fog up when you take a shower. And they've set up free wireless internet access for us at the hospitality room, too. Pretty sweet.

So far I've spent a lot of time in orientation meetings, surrounded by other gaijin. It's a little surprising to me how few of them speak any Japanese at all. I was also a little dismayed at the apparent level of Japanese of some of the people who've already been here a while. But on the other hand, it's refreshing to be around people like this. There just seems to be something about the kind of person who gets accepted to a program like this and runs off to Japan for a few years- we just seem to think the same way in certain fundamental ways. It seems that it's not very often I get to hang around with people who are even remotely similar to me. So it's nice.

Oh well. Whatever, I guess. My goal this time around is to get good enough at Japanese that I can understand any television show pretty well and read a novel without undue exertion. I'd like to think it's not out of the realm of possibility.

We all went to a huge Japanese style reception last night. It was almost identical to many of the things I set up and tore down at the wedding hall, back in the day. Just on a much larger scale (I think there's 1600 of us here.)

Also made some forays out into Shinjuku the last couple of nights. Went to an interesting restaurant last night with the Nagasaki contingent.

We ship out for Nagasaki tomorrow. I'm hoping to head over to check out Akihabara this evening...

I've come to cherish these transition periods in my life, those brief intervals where I'm neither here nor there, moving between two radically different situations. Airplanes are really fun that way, 'specially when you get to time travel.

�gI like airplanes. I like anywhere that isn�ft a proper place. I like in-betweens.�h -delirium

rakka eda ni kaerazu,

greyarea

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