Landed!

So after roughly 27 hrs of total travel time, Rod and I finally made it to our hotel in Tokyo. Its almost startling that such a patchwork plan of flights, buses and cabs worked out so smoothly. Arrived early in Atlanta and LAX, cruised smoothly through security in both MIA and LAX. Honestly, the worst part of the trip was the fact that we had no WiFi on the LAX-Narita flight. We were sorta depending on that to sort out our immediate steps once we landed, and more than that was hoping to upload some videos and photos to the blog while in transit, but damn Singapore airlines! Besides that, the long leg was alright; no cabin fever or stir-craziness to report.  I had a nice conversation with an older Indian couple who lived in Montreal who were literally traveling around the world! They left from Montreal and were on their way to meet friends in Singapore for a 30-day cruise that would take them all the way from Singapore and end in Italy. I told Mrs. Patel that I want to do something similar one day, hopefully sooner than later.
 

 Once we landed, and the initial euphoria of getting off that giant subsonic aluminum tube, one of the first things we noted was just how damn quiet it was. EVERYWHERE. We were in the international arrivals area and we barely even detected any hushed whispers. Rod's billowy demeanor only made the misplaced serenity that much more apparent. The bus ride from the airport into Tokyo city was long, about 1.5 hours. The amazing thing we noticed next was just how clean the streets and highways are. I know this sounds like an exaggeration, but cot-damn if you can't eat off of it. When we transferred from the shuttle ("limousine") to the cab that took us to the hotel, it we couldn't help but be a little amazed at the spic 'n' span '92 Toyota Crown decked out in all sorts of meters, tracking hardware and billing software. And the car ran beautifully, like the cabbie just took it off the dealership.it didn't come close to feeling like we were in an old beater, even if it was just a short ride from the station to the airport. 

The hotel is pretty nice. We're staying at the Hotel Grand Arc Hanzomon, next to the Imperial Palace in the Chiyoda district. The room is up on the 14th floor and we have a decent view of the imperial gardens and a section of the Tokyo skyline. I took a video of the room and the night view, so look to see those later. And about the videos, I ran intoo some technical difficulty. But we have a few videos, but just can't upload them. I'll get them up eventually though. Anyways, its been a long-ass day, and tomorrow is shaping up to be fairly packed. I'm turning in. . look for another few posts tomorrow once we get properly connected. Later!