5/17 - Sunday - On to Tokyo

I'm writing this post at 7:40AM on Monday in my room in Tokyo. We finished our travels yesterday. Tokyo is an hour ahead of Taipei, so 7PM our time is now 6am the same day at home. Here's a random picture from the in-flight map:


Here is what we were served in-flight:


And if I haven't mentioned it yet, the recycling programs over here seem to be pretty advanced (picture below). Of course, another thing I don't think I mentioned is that there are HARDLY ANY trash cans around. I guess it's because they don't walk around with food and drinks, but for us it becomes a big pain when we do... lol.


Another neat thing is the use of cartoon characters in official things. For example the in-flight safety video or on this customs document in Japan:


The in-flight cameras are really neat. I took a video of the downward view and recorded our landing:

Landing in Tokyo from Joshua Belliveau on Vimeo.

After landing we had to take a train from the airport to near where we are staying. There were a lot of rice patties along the way:


We made it to the hostel. What a walk!!! We took the subway to a place near where we are staying, but we had to roll our luggage around 1/2mile before we got to the room. We even had a few bag's wheels break. Luckily mine was not one of them. Here's a map of the campus where we are staying:


The Japanese, as we've been told, are a very formal and rules based society. As such, they separated our group; girls are on the 7th floor, boys are on the 3rd. No food or alcohol is allowed in the rooms either. Strangely enough, we do have a small fridge though, so I guess I need to look into that rule.

BTW, I'm not sure if I ever mentioned the cockroaches and rats we saw in the street in Taipei outside the hotel. Well, I finally managed to capture a picture:


Also, I now have internet in my room (for a fee). What a relief!!!