Land of the Rising Sun

We arrive in Japan tomorrow morning.

I wrote a post for the blog I'm writing for a local classroom, in which I said,

Tokyo is the capital of Japan and is considered the largest metropolitan area in the world. You may think of it as one big city, but it is actually made up of 23 smaller cities that all merged into one. Approximately 13 million people live in Tokyo! In comparison, about 2.8 million people live in Toronto. I think Toronto is a big city, so I'm quite nervous to explore Tokyo. 

This is no lie. I'm incredibly nervous. I'm not a crowds person, so Tokyo is basically the exactly opposite of my comfort zone. I am glad I have reliable friends to travel with, especially ones who share my priorities in port- that is, exploring and living a place without finding it necessary to get drunk in every city. Although we still might try Japanese karakoe. :)

We travel to Tokyo the day we arrive (tomorrow!), two days there, a night bus to Kyoto, one night there, then to Kobe, staying on the ship the last night and one last day in Kobe. It feels like it's going to be forever, but it's only 6 days. Then we're back on ship.

Our weekends/weekdays are basically reversed for the next month. A week in country, a weekend in class, repeat.

It reminds me of diving for cinderblocks at camp. Take a deep breath, know where you're going, make sure you know how to surface, then go for it.

Japan, breathe, China, breathe, Vietnam, breathe, Singapore.

I'll be taking my laptop in Japan, as, like everyone else on the ship, I am jonesing for a little internet. I don't miss it, in many ways, it reminds me of the luxury of isolation that is camp, but some people are positively rabid. Although, on second thought, I really don't need it. Lugging it around the Japanese countryside just for checking Facebook? Hmm. I'll have to think about it.

Right. I need to go eat dinner soon. I've had a quiet afternoon packing and watching tv, really a mental rest in preparation for the go-go nature of the next few days. We have our pre-port at 2000, 2 hours from now. Our internet is cut at 2400, because of Japanese law.

Here we go.