Getting there, earthquake

This was the first relatively smooth arrival I've had in a while. We got to the airport early, got through security no problem (well...my carry-on was apparently suspect, so they searched it and found nothing), and proceeded to wait two hours to board the plane. We had window seats, and the guy who bought the aisle one next to us moved over to the other side, affording himself and us a little more room. The flight was a little more than 14 hours, but it felt longer than that...probably because I couldn't really sleep and couldn't concentrate on anything while I was awake. I was just antsy the whole time. Bobby and I did get some decent pictures of landscapes below us while we were flying, though.  **Note:  you can click on any picture for a larger version of it.**

Runway

Taking off

Frozen lakes

Arctic tundra

Ice floes

Among the clouds

Anyway, we arrived, and as we're heading toward immigration, baggage, and all of that, I notice something odd. Half the airport is darkened and completely shut down, and it looked like our flight was the only one that had arrived in the last hour at least, because there were hardly any people around. I've never seen an airport so dead in my entire life. The earthquake has really put a damper on travel into this country. I wanted to take a picture, but generally, picture-taking in airports is frowned upon for security reasons, so I didn't. I did, however, take a picture of the subway stop, which was also nearly deserted.

Empty subway

Finding our way around the subway would have been pretty impossible on our own. Thankfully, they have an English-speaking guide over by the ticket area who helped us plot our route. I felt better about not being able to figure out the train system to Kashiwa based on their schedule when she had to go consult someone else/a more comprehensive schedule book than we had. Once we had the route and figured out how to buy the right tickets from the right machine, the ride was relatively uneventful. There was an air of awkward silence about the train, though. I guess it wasn't awkward for the Japanese people, because they kind of expect it and they ride the trains all the time. I did notice how well-dressed nearly everyone was. All business suits or skirts with tights and overcoats and scarves. It makes sense given the time of day we were there that people would be getting out of work and going home, but even on the plane I noticed that the Japanese people all dressed well, while everyone else was dressed for comfort...almost like they'd be on a plane for 14 hours or something...

At this point Bobby and I were both pretty exhausted, and thus, the picture-taking stopped. As did caring about much else besides getting to the hotel and passing out. The train station is very near the hotel we were staying at, so it was a short walk. The street did look pretty cool, though, all lit up with bright signs in Japanese on the sides of all the buildings. It still didn't really feel like we were in Japan, though, based on the people. We'd had few interactions with people, and it was kind of hard for me to believe that there weren't just a whole bunch of Japanese-Americans walking around. Their fashion isn't so different from ours, and when they're not talking to you in Japanese, it doesn't feel like they're that different. We checked in to the hotel, dropped our bags in the room, and went to this cheap little restaurant nearby for supper. That felt a bit Japanese because we ordered in Japanese (well, Bobby ordered for the both of us, because the extent of my Japanese allows me to point awkwardly at pictures and apologize). We had this kind of shaved pork and sauce over rice, which was pretty good, and some nice, hot green tea. Being full and tired, it was now time to go to bed.

We fell asleep at around 8:30, and around 11:30 the bed started shaking. I was half-dreaming and it felt like we were on a rocky, fast-moving train. This gave me dreams about the mattress being on such a train before I woke up and informed Bobby that the bed was moving. We knew that there were still possible aftershocks from the earthquake a month ago, but I remember thinking that it was rather a big one for being so long afterwards. Bobby groggily said something along the lines of, “It's just an earthquake” before we both fell right back asleep. It wasn't until a couple hours later that we both woke up again and realized that what we had felt wasn't aftershocks, but another whole earthquake, in roughly the same place as the first one. At this point we hopped online to figure out precisely what happened, and then inform people worried about us back home that we were okay. It's kind of funny that they knew about the earthquake before we did, and we were the ones experiencing it.