10 - 2 & 3 - 06 Monday & Tuesday, “Crossing The Line”

1st day –Monday & Tuesday, Oct 2-3, 2006 “Crossing The Line”

Flying into San Francisco the other night was a great move by JFMF. First we had a nice little get together and an orientation, followed by some great food and a good nights sleep before the plane ride. Being fully rested would be the key to success after such a long trip.

I got up at 6:AM and ran about three miles, knowing that I was about to take a monster of an airplane flight. It was a small little gym with only four treadmills. They were full, but I only needed to wait about 5 minutes. Some guy next to me REALLY needed to brush his teeth, but no silly American was going to wreck my glow coming from the opportunity of a lifetime.

After a quick buffet style breakfast, I made it out to the bus and found that one of the JFMF guides was wearing a hat that ooked suspiciously like mine! I had left it in the dinning room the night before. She gave it to me and we all laughed.

We took the shuttle to San Francisco airport and the entire bus load of JMFers waited in line to have our passports checked in a special line made just for JMF. We got our tickets.

Next, I ran around the entire airport in search of one thing; the one thing that I had forgot to bring with me – PANTS. That is right.

When you are in a hurry, it is very easy to leave a stack of clothing on the table and walk out the door. I had PLANTY of pants ready to go. But they were back home in Albany and they were doing me no good in San Francisco.

I only had shorts with me and a pair of jeans. This brings about two problems… ONE – In japan pants would cost a ton of money if I could find them my size and TWO – I would not find them my size. Everyone is like a size 29-32.

No luck in the airport. They had EVERYTHING, but pants.

I got on the plane for my 10 and a half hour trip and watched bits of the new Poisidon movie and also watched some episodes of Twilight Zone with a cool art teacher sitting next to me on my laptop, (Jenny Sodo from California.) She is pretty cool and very into music. She tried to charge her ipod off of my IBM computer and it locked up, because the two, IBM & apple, were not compatible I guess. But it has since corrected itself, though she had feared my computer killed her iPod.

At a strange part in our flight, it got really dark then light again. We passed the international date line. It was a new day. It was pretty cool to watch the monitors that were embedded in the seats in front of us. They had a map of the world and we could watch our progress as we reached the line and then later our destination.

As we got off the plan, we found ourselves exhausted, because we had added about 13 hours onto our day due to time changes. We had our passports looked at and then were escorted to our shuttle.

On the shuttle, I helped distribute to my group 260 yen for meals along with maps of the city.

Jen, Andrew and I went out for a walk in Tokyo. Andrew met up with a couple of friends who wanted to eat at a sit down restaurant, but I was a bit too shot for that; coupled with the idea that eating at 8:PM was like actually eating at 7 AM Eastern time – AND I STILL HADN’T SLEPT!

Jen didn’t really want to eat either so we stopped at a convenience store, grabbed a couple of strange drinks and headed back to the hotel. The drink I got looked sort of like watered-down mercury. It actually tasted like coconut and lemon, or at least something close to that and had an after taste that I had never experienced before. “Calpis Water: Refresh & Happy” is different. I didn’t dislike it, but it is definitely an acquired taste and one I had never acquired in America before.

Just as we got back to the hotel, we found a cool little Japanese garden so we decided to go check it out. In it was a little pond with coy fish and many bonsai trees. Jen saw a stray cat and went over to it, so I took a picture. It was a funny looking thing, in that it had virtually no real tail.

When I got back to my room, I hit the bed and was out like a light. I woke up a number of times though during the night, due to probably jet-lag.

In the morning I realized that I had NO toothpaste. I called housekeeping and they said that they could bring me up some in 15 minutes. As I took a shower, I got another call saying it would be more like 30 minutes before they could bring it. When It finally arrived – the man handed me a toothBRUSH – not toothpaste. I thanked him and then brushed my teeth in the remainder of the Calpis Water from the night before. Speaking of things that I forgot, I FORGOT ALL MY DRESS PANTS IN ALBANY, remember? I am now known as the guy who has no pants in the JFMF group. Fortunately, one of the other members said that I could borrow some off him. He brought me a pair of khakis that were WAY too big for me. I may still wear them a night or two, seeing as I currently have nothing, but I do look like MC Hammer when I have them on.