Signing Off - Day 1 (or is it Day 2)

It's Friday June 4th, 10:30 PM Tokyo time. (9:30 AM Florida time). When I sat down to write this I figured I was signing off for Day 1 but since we left Thursday AM and it's now Friday PM, I guess we're already at the end of Day 2. We left Chicago Thursday at 12:17 PM Local Time and arrived in Japan at 2:30 PM Local Time - FRIDAY.

The ride over was great. We sat in the front lower deck of a Boeing 747-400 (if ain't Boeing then we ain't going). It was the first time Katie or I have ever had a full lay-down seat and I have to say; it was awesome! The seat auto-positions for landing and even in that position it's more reclined and comfortable then any first class domestic flight I've been on (in any position). But, the best part was the service. You couldn't take a sip of champagne without it being instantly topped off. The food was fantastic and other than not being able to slump over on Katie (as I'm accustom to doing on our longer flights), the flight was delightful. In fact, Katie and I both agreed we could have gone another 13 hours and been just fine.

Arriving in Narita, Japan we disembarked, cleared customs, grabbed our luggage and found our ride to Tokyo. The airport was super clean and very easy to navigate. From the time we got off the plane until the time we were on the road was less than 30 minutes. The ride to Tokyo took about an hour.

Once we arrived at the Ritz we were greeted by our own host. She took us right up to our room where she had a mobile check-in kit (our luggage was already waiting in the room, how did that happen?). We spent 5 minutes doing some paperwork, she handed us our keys and headed out.

Since it was only about 4 PM Katie and I headed out to the street. This hotel is right in mid-town and as best we can tell, in the heart of everything (although this city is huge). We walked a few blocks and found a Citi-Bank ATM. It gives out 10,000 bills, nice (the Yen is about 10 to 1). After that we found a nice restaurant with pictures on its menu. That worked out perfectly since they didn't speak a lick of English and the best we can do so far is say Hello and Thank You (Shout out to Styx for Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto to help us memorize the Thank You part - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anNCkOKogKs). But, when in doubt we just smile and nod.

After that we headed back towards the hotel and found a nice looking spa-ish type place that charges less than 1/2 of what the Ritz wanted for a massage. We hit it up for a quick 90 minutes then called it quits.

Check out the photos from today,,, the GeoTag didn't work in the plane so the photos of us flying were somewhere between Chicago and Japan. The pictures of the Sarasota Observer is our way of saying thanks to such an awesome publication. We're taking it with us across Asia so look for the pictures to get a bit more creative.

God Bless You All!

2010-06-03_Honeymoon in Tokyo