Japan Part II

"Yokoso! Welcome to Japan!" said the billboard after I had finally deplaned.
"I'm back, you bastards." I replied, aloud, to the geisha in the photograph.
She smiled demurely.

After twenty hours in transit, I made my way to the Narita Express train bound for Shinjuku in Tokyo. Before I could get on, however, I had to wait for a small crowd of uniformed-and-white-gloved workers to straighten every headrest cloth, wipe down the trim of every window, and double and triple check their work. Oh, Japan.

As I waited, I went to the nearest kiosk to pick up a bottle of Pocari Sweat. The kiosk was called "Let's Kiosk," and the first sip of that awful stuff was so full of nostalgia and happiness that I had to fight back a tear.
I'm a loser.

Only in Japan can you have upholstered seats in train stations, as the Japanese do not share America's enthusiasm for recreational defacing of public property.

And then I was on the train. Everything is a blur when you've been on a plane for 13 hours. I scrawled notes in my obnoxious Japanese puppy-themed notebook, my leg pressed uncomfortably against the leg of a well-dressed Japanese guy who was, predictably, asleep on the train, and predictably, in possession of a cow-print cell-phone.

Daylight turned into night, Shinjuku turned into Omiya, and after handing over my first-born child to my landlord, I slept my first night in my new home on the other side of the world.