Japan - Week 1 (07 Nov - 10 Nov) - Planes, trains, and automobiles

This project reminds me of the TV show "The Amazing Race". Given that, I will attempt to emulate the style... on this week's show, our team set out for Yokosuka Japan. With team members traveling from Colorado, San Diego, Massachusetts, Virginia, and San Francisco, we all made our way to San Francisco Airport (SFO) and met in the international terminal. Our team members include Trey (a farm boy turned computer jockey), Andrew (a programmer from JMU turned professional beer taster), Phil (a communications expert who used to live in the subway tunnels of the bay area), Neetu (another JMU graduate trying to accumulate as many stamps in her passport in the next 6 months), Chip (a former Air Force pilot turned desk jockey), and Erin (a real rocket scientist who plans to eat all the sushi in Japan).

Once the team reached SFO, they made a mad dash for their plane (actually a leisurely walk, but that doesn't sound as exciting). The team spread out around the plane and made themselves comfortable for the 10 1/2 hour flight to Narita Airport in Japan. About 3 hours into their journey, they gathered for a team meeting... once they calmed down the rest of the passengers (it's frightening to have 7 consultants gathered in any one spot on an airplane flying at 36000 ft!!!)

We arrived into Tokyo's Narita airport at 5:00p local time. The first thing I noticed was that the jet way was by far the cleanest I'd ever seen... it looked brand new. The walk through the airport only continued to impress me with the extreme cleanliness. Every walkway was clean and there weren't any burned out light bulbs anywhere. Very impressive.

After spending over an hour waiting in line to get to immigration, we made our way to baggage and then through customs. We boarded the 7:00p train to Yokosuka... it made 33 stops between the airport and the end of the line where we got off. Once off the train, we wandered out of the station... we finally decided to take a cab. It was a very scary 5 minute cab ride to the hotel.

We all survived and finally made it to the hotel and got checked in by about 11:00p.

I quickly discovered that the rumors of tiny hotels in Japan were true...


The bedroom... dreamy isn't it!


Tiny bathroom - Bidet included at no extra charge