I'm amazed that we pulled this off...

At the end of June all of the Bates siblings and our families met up in Japan for a week of fun and Eastern culture! This was Jeremy's and my first time to Japan, and we loved it. Honestly, Asia has never been at the top of my list of places I have wanted to travel.

Back in October Emily, Jeremy and I were part of a corporate relay race (team UCSF). The race was sponsored by the Japanese airline, ANA and the prize was round trip tickets from SFO to Tokyo. We were ecstatic when we won 1st place for a co-ed team and received the grand prize. There were limitations on our award letter--certain blackout dates and we had to make the trip before Sept. '08. When we found out that Alex and his family would be there this summer while Alex taught study abroad, we decided we would do our best to get there at that time as well. After all, wouldn't it be nice to learn from Alex and spend time with him in a place he loves so much (not to mention have a translator)? When Michael caught wind of this plan, he felt he needed to get on board as well. He and Amanda had received tickets to Thailand for their wedding, to visit her brother, and were planning to go this summer. Michael began scheming an extended layover in Japan. After multiple emails back and forth with ANA, and much time spent with travel agents on michael's end, we actually pulled it off to overlap time all together in Japan.

Jeremy and I caught our flights at noon on Friday, June 27. We almost got bumped, and would've received $1600, plus a longer trip, but unfortunately too many people volunteered and we weren't chosen (probably because then we would've actually been making money on this flight). The flight over was fine, but we didn't sleep a wink. We enjoyed the self serve "Nosh bar" on the plane. This was the first of many funny uses of the English language that we encountered. 3 movies and several games of Solitaire later, we arrived at Narita airport. We exchanged our pre-purchased J-Rail ticket to the useable form, got our tickets to Nagoya, a phone card and headed to the train depot. We transferred from Narita Express to the shinkansen (very fast train) not too far from Tokyo. Wow, the train system blew us away. They were incredibly precise, arriving and departing at exactly the scheduled time, but also very clean, the agents helpful, the trains smooth and FAST.
We arrived at Nagoya station, and were immediately overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of such a crowded city. There were people all around us, dashing off in every direction. Eventually we weaved our way through them, followed Alex's directions, and found the meeting place.
We then searched for 20 minutes for a pay phone. Everyone has cell phones nowadays so public phones are few and far between. When we found one we called Alex to notify him of our arrival. Before too long we saw Alex walk in with the cutest baby ever on his back (aforementioned Sean), and Michael and Amanda in tow. So good to see them! The whole walk back to the apartment I helped Alex keep Sean awake (they were trying to get him adjusted to the time).
Outside of Nagoya station:

After spending time with the kids and everyone at the apartment, Jeremy and I got our bags and headed across the street with Alex to the traditional Japanese inn he had booked for us. It was perfect since it was so close to Alex's place, and also quite nice. We loved our first Japanese Inn experience. The innkeepers were sooo kind. Here's some pictures of our room during our stay there:


It took a while to get used to their fastidious customs, and we felt like Western slobs for the first few days. Where and how you place your feet on what is very specific. Upon entering the foyer, you remove your shoes and step directly from your shoes into new ones that are to be worn around the inn. Your socks should not touch the ground of the foyer. You wear the house shoes in all the hallways but remove these before entering the bedroom, which has Tatami mat floors. You also remove them and put on different shoes to enter the bathroom. Of course there are different shoes to wear if you want to go onto the outdoor porch as well. We found that when we removed our house slippers to go into our room, and left them crooked, someone would come by and straighten them perfectly for us. There are reasons that everything in Japan is so clean and well maintained!

Before we went to bed I enjoyed drinking the first of many bottles of Mugi-cha (cold tea made from barley, not tea leaves) given to us by the innkeeper. The stuff is so refreshing. I quickly learned to identify the kanji symbol for this drink, and had it every day.

We slept really well on our Japanese bed. It is like a quilted mat set on the tatami mat floor, with a comforter on top. Comfier than you'd imagine! In the morning we enjoyed our crisp Japanese robes and a hot shower. We got more practice using a Japanese style commode, which I will write about later, with pictures!! How's that for a cliff hanger?