Lost in Translation

So, I'm in Tokyo. I made it through the airport, on 2 trains and used my map to get to the hostel and it all went seamlessly. I am rather in shock about that (as well as very tired and a bit disorientated) and still waiting for things to go wrong. That may happen with the tour I have booked tomorrow as they still haven't told me where they are picking me up. Oh, the optimism.

I sat next a lovely couple in their 70's on the plane over. They enquired about whether I was travelling alone and I told them I was, and at the start of months of travelling. "Oh, I suppose you've just finished school or college, haven't you?" came the polite enquiry. I was tempted to say yes. They stared with consternation at the lunch trays when they arrived. It wasn't the food - that was soy and ginger chicken with rice, and was lovely - but the fact that it was delivered with chopsticks as well as plastic cutlery. They confided that the chopsticks scared them and they had brought their own supply of plastic knives and forks with them "so we don't starve". I confess the thought of chopsticks had not even occured to me yet, but I silently offer up a prayer of thanks to my parents for teaching me how to use them at a young age. I used them to eat my lunch.

The toilets here are scary. So far I've avoided the ones that squirt water, only because at the airport in Tokyo all the ladies were queing for those ones, and seeing my blonde hair, they ushered me to the front of the queue and into an empty cubicle on the end. I thought maybe they were bring nice, but no - it was a scary hole in the ground thing that clearly no-one wanted to use. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out how to pee without getting any on my jeans as I haven't had to squat like that since I was a kid. But anyway, yes, that's too much information really, I'm quite sure none of you want to hear about me peeing.

Well, that's it for now. I'm just hanging out waiting until I can check in. It's 2pm here, but 6am for me and I only slept for about an hour and a half on the plane.... zzzz.......