Getting settled in Tokyo

We arrived in Tokyo on the 13th and immediately had a few adventures (Matt moreso than I.)

Matt had a box of clothes shipped via Fedex. They purposely held it at the airport with the idea that he would be able to pick it up when he arrived. Matt made these arrangements based on several false assumptions:

1. Fedex would be located in the passenger terminal
2. The average Japanese person speaks English.

As you might guess, neither is true. I sat in our arrival terminal for about an hour while Matt tried to fetch his box by walking over to the cargo terminal in the rain. He came back and declared he was not leaving the airport until he got his box, so I took the airport limo to our hotel at a cost of about $30.

Before doing so I used the toilet and got some food. As I sat down to eat two policemen approached me and politely asked to see my passport. My guess is that they were wondering why I'd spent the last two hours in the airport lobby. I explained to them the situation, which with my limited Japanese and there limited English was made clear. They thanked me for my time and let me be, so I finished my sandwich and hopped on the bus.

About two hours later Matt arrived. He was forced to hire a cab to take him around the airport since his box weighed in at about sixty lbs. After many stops at many different parts of the cargo terminal he claimed his box and proceeded to take a cab to the hotel. This cost about $300 (as I'd told him it would.)

That done, we crashed for the night and headed to our dorm the next day, which was only about a $10 cab ride away. The rooms are quite nice and the building we are living in is only a few years old. The rooms have a bed, desk, wardrobe and refrigerator as well as a toilet and sink. There is a shower, kitchen and laundry room right outside my door in the hall. A much nicer setup than I was expecting actually.

We did some grocery shopping to buy some staples in which I realized just how expensive fruit is in Japan (VERY.) I loaded up on rice, pasta, noodles, etc. Seems like this is going to be very similar to undergrad!

I also have two packages coming via Fedex, but I am having them sent here. We made a small mistake and listed the value of the contents as over $10,000. Given this they were held at customs. A woman from Fedex called me and I explained what had happened. They faxed over a form for me to complete, which I mailed to them yesterday. I got a call this morning telling me they had received the forms and that the boxes would be released next week. Since Monday is a holiday (in celebration of the elderly) I might not receive anything until Tuesday. Not a problem. I can survive until then. It will be nice to have my laptop though. Right now I'm using Matt's MacBook, which is very nice indeed.

On Thursday we met up in Akihabara with the other members of the Brandeis crew and went our for sushi. The damage was less than $30/person which is not that bad for sushi. I can't say we will eat like that too often, but it was damn good.

Last night I ate in. I had noodles and pork dumplings for lunch and made a chicken curry with rice and eggs for dinner. I figure the cheaper I eat during the week the more fun I can have on the weekends.

I have a few thousand pictures from my trip so far, most of which are crap. I'm uploading them all as we speak which is proving to be a long and tedious process. I will probably need a day or two more to finish the job and sort through everything before getting them ready to view. I managed to take a few good ones that will be worth the wait.