From Toronto to Tokyo

So we got to the airport with plenty of time to spare for Lisa`s flight. The only hang-up for me was that my flight didn`t leave for several hours later. Needless to say I was early for my flight. After checking in with the JET people, and getting into 2 lines that ended up being the wrong ones, I passed through check-in/security in under five minutes. More waiting on the plane, as the flight was slightly delayed, but we took off in good time.
The plane ride itself was fine. Three movies were played (Hellboy, Man on Fire, and Shrek 2), and there always seemed to be something playing on the screen (they do weather reports, news, sports updates, etc). Our flightplan was to head Northwest from T.O., go up through Alaska, cross the Bering Strait, and head down Russia`s coast to Japan. The flight was about 13.5 hours, and the time difference is also 13 hours, so it made for a long day (when I fly back, though, I`ll get there at about the same time I left Japan).
The flight itself was fine. A little turbulence at the beginning, but overall pretty uneventful (well, besides the fact that a vehicle larger than my house can fit over a hundred people on it, and fly halfway around the world without stopping to refuel - blows my mind). Met some fellow JETs, and enjoyed the ride. Seeing as I was busy getting ready, it was kind of nice to do nothing for 13 hours straight.
Smooth landing into Narita airport, and they had what seemed like bus-loads of JET volunteers in black shirts directing us at every turn. It would have been almost impossible to get lost. Then took a 2 hour-ish bus ride to the Keio Plaza Hotel in Tokyo. Fortunately, the bus was air conditioned, which was good because it is HOT in Japan. Think of the hottest day we`ve had all summer, then increase the humidity by a factor of three, and that`s what it`s like on a cool day. I`m not exaggerating. Lucky for me, I worked in a greenhouse in a summer, and slowly worked up a tolerance.
Back to the hotel: this is probably the nicest hotel I`ll ever stay in in my life. Five stars, and right next to another hotel where "Lost in Translation" was shot. They treated us like royalty there. Granted that JET was putting up over 1300 people from all over the world (and was thus probably paying a large sum to the hotel), but we had most of our meals catered to us, and friendly staff available to help us with anything we needed. I bunked with Tan and Ryan, two guys who are in a prefecture North of where I am now.
Basically, we spent the most of our time in Tokyo learning stuff we`d need while we are in Japan, and doing our jobs. School`s out right now, so I`m spending the first three weeks at the Board of Education working on my Japanese, preparing for classes, and getting my apartment set up with the necessities.

Highlights of Tokyo:
-going out for dinner the first night and realizing that I don`t speak Japanese. Fortunately there was a picture-menu, and I could just point.
-going for drinks to this heaven-and-hell themed restaurant. We hung out on the hell floor. The urinal at this place was hilarious. I laughed out loud when I first saw it. It`s this giant two-headed statue that sings music at you. When the `good` head faces you, it sings `nice` music, but when it rotates, and the `bad` head faces you, you get some `bad` music (kind of hard to tell what they were singing). Also, the part that you actually piss into is this giant bowl that`s incorporated into the statue that swings back and forth in time with the music.
-the hotel food. buffet style, and plenty of it. Yum.
-wore a suit for a few days. Damn I was hot. Five points to anyone who picked up on the ambiguity of that last sentence.
-learning how to iron a shirt in under 40 minutes.
-using the wireless connection for the first time on my laptop between seminars to email home
-Tokyo!!! A whole other world. Lots of flashing lights which advertise signs I can`t understand. Trying to get a Japanese-English dictionary was fun too. Unfortunately, they kept us pretty busy, so I couldn`t sightsee too much, but just walking around the area I was in was pretty neat.

Wednesday morning, I woke up early, got my stuff together, and joined my group for a ride on the shinkansen (bullet train). I`ll save that for a later time, though...