Day One, Tokyo: 12 hours in a time warp

Even though it is Sunday Night in Tokyo, it does not give me super powers to tell you what NFL games to pick. It's 9:25 a.m. here.

… After getting three hours of sleep, I took off for Tokyo at 7 a.m. Saturday by getting a ride to Los Angeles International Airport. I met my friend Diamond and we boarded out plane at 10 a.m. From the time the door was sealed until it was opened again, 12 hours had passed and it was a new day.

The strange thing is that it hardly felt like 12 hours. I don’t want to say the time flew by, but what I will say is that the service on our Korean Air flight was so good, it help make time not drag as much. The other thing that helped was that the plane was dark and the blinds were closed.

We departed Los Angeles and went up the coast until we got to Monterey, then made our turn to Japan. During the flight there was a monitor that came up after movies and short specials letting us know everything about our flight. I can say at 5:13 p.m. PDT we crossed into tomorrow.

I wished I had received more sleep, but probably got maybe an hour. It wasn’t so much for a lack of trying, but it was about a matter of comfort. I figured foolishly that with a lack of sleep I would be able to on the plane. I was wrong. Diamond was able to sleep much better than me, but I think it is because he does it for a living covering the Dodgers.

One of Diamond’s favorite things to do on the flight was to listen to the music on the plane, especially to this one station about soundtracks. It’s not so much he liked listening to the songs, he just found the American DJ hysterical. What happens is that after a set of songs, a female DJ speaks then another in a different language then the American DJ and what he said sounds silly. Diamond said he could imagine a female saying that, but not a man.

… After we got to our hotel, we walked around the area and were immediately over taken by all the sights. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a town that was so bright before at night. Just looking down the main streets in the Ginza area of Tokyo was just a bit much for two people that just spent 12 hours on a plane and a 90 minute shuttle ride to the hotel.

We walked into the Sony Showroom and immediately saw things that we could never afford, but were so cool. We feel we have a pretty good idea of what is coming soon to showrooms to you in the United States.

We went out to dinner at what is could be compared to a bar and grill. The only thing is that we may or may not know the proper procedure to order. We felt we waited for a long time for a waiter to come by after our drink orders. We didn’t know whether to call one over or just wait. Finally we decided to wave one over.

While waiting for out food, I made an observation about my first time out of the United States. For the first time I felt isolated when it comes to conversations in restaurants. I was surrounded, as you would expect, by locals enjoying their food and I heard myself talk and it was standing out since the background noise wasn’t English but Japanese. It’s just a strange perspective I have.

… Currently we are watching Japanese television and the show has a female traveling around Asia eating random food. I have no idea what she is eating – whether be animal, mineral or vegetable – and I really don’t want to know. It’s just best that way.

Pictures are here.