Getting to Japan

I got to Tokyo three Fridays ago, August 1st. On the several hour flight I got to drink several beverages, eat several meals, and watch several movies including Her, American Hustle, and The Place Beyond The Pines.  I enjoyed the films, but if you need a more thorough review of any of them you can check out Amateurcinephile.com. I arrived at 8 am and Zabeth was right outside the baggage terminal and customs checkpoint waiting for me. Her trip was almost worse than mine, since she had to take an all night bus from her home in Kakuda to reach the airport at 6 am and then wait for me. I am thankful she did though because I have never been so happy to see somebody. We didn't waste time on greetings though, instead she motioned for me to sprint behind her to the train terminal so we could be on the first train from Narita Airport into the city. When we got to our train stop, we met up with her friend Roxy, put our bags in lockers at the train station and took off as a group to see the city on foot. We ate, walked past a lot of electronics stores, and ended up at Ueno Park to meet with Ethan. He was a teacher close to Zabeth, but was in Tokyo because he is headed back to the US. It was hot in Tokyo and everyone was pretty tired from traveling in so we checked into our hotel and rested until it was dinner time. We went out for Yaka-tori, which meant a lot of cooked meats served on a skewer. Some of the more interesting things we tried were chicken cartilage, horse meat, and pig rectum (all very good). We walked around some more, threw a couple games of darts in a pool hall, and then decided to make the most of our first night in Tokyo. On the streets all day people had been handing out flyers, and one flyer in particular was for a maid cafe. None of us knew exactly what this entailed, but you kind of figure it out just based on the name. It is kind of like a Hooters, but all the waitresses are dressed up as maids. We went to the maid cafe, ate ice cream sundaes, giggled a lot, and then could really consider our first day in Tokyo a success. On our second day Zabeth and I spent some time at the Imperial Palace, just relaxing and trying to sit together for a little while. That night even more of her friends came in to Tokyo to check out a big fireworks festival. We got on the train at 5, and were jam-packed with what seemed like 100,000 other residents once we actually got to the festival. There was a big grass field covered in people, and we took our shoes of and waded out into the sea of people to find a spot for everyone to sit down. The show was incredible, going on for almost two hours. As we watched our own show, we could see several others taking place in different parts of the city. Though I don't know the name of our festival Im sure it was the best.