Last year this time we were in Japan-- one of my absolute FAVORITE places on Earth. Here's a post I wrote at the time but never published:

We got in one minute late to Haneda Airport-- arriving at 3:35pm Tokyo time-- we started out the day before at 7am in Boston, there is a 13 hour time difference so if you do the math we traveled for almost 17 hours to get 11,000 miles.

The flight itself was packed and pretty hellish-- I posted previously the video from STIR CRAZY which pretty much sums up how it felt.

Walking out of the airport I was hit in the face with a blast of heat and humidity I’ve not felt in a long time. It was mid-late October and it was 88 degrees with 100% humidity. Japanese people dress to the season apparently because people were wearing scarves and jackets. I stripped down to my polo shirt and pushed on.

We grabbed a luxury bus from the airport which dropped us off at the Tokyo Hotel which is a mere two blocks from the Granbell in the Shibuya District of Tokyo where we would be staying.

Granbell was decorated for Halloween as was much of downtown-

The Granbell itself is the perfect hotel for Halloween season-- it's located down a side street in the Shibuya District of Tokyo and if you didn't know where it was you'd be hard pressed to find it.

Even the hotel sign is hidden in a thicket of greenery.

The entrance to the hotel is barely marked, and the door has no handle. I'm pretty sure when James Bond stays in Tokyo he stays here. SPECTRE isn’t finding him in here.

I want to emphasize that the entrance here is not made up for Halloween, this is what it ALWAYS looks like! Is it any wonder this is my favorite Hotel in the world??

It's easy to lose track of the time when traveling such a distance, but our bus left Haneda at about 4:15pm Tokyo Time and we got to the hotel a little after 6pm even though it didn't seem that long of a ride.

Veronica was wiped out so she took a shower and decided to head to bed, I ran over to the 7-Eleven Bank to withdraw some Yen, took in a couple of blocks around the hotel perusing the fresh fruits on display and at one point took a break leaning up against a guardrail. From out of one of the shops came a tiny little Goblin— I’d put him at about 2 foot tall- he was shiney with big pointed ears, without missing a beat he leapt up onto the guardrail next to me and tapped me on the shoulder.

“You look all in.” He said with an Irish accent.

Having a hard time realizing that I was so tired I was starting to hallucinate I decided to head back. I showered and ended up sleeping until about 330am sitting up wide awake.

One of the things I like best about the Granbell is the beds are very comfortable. Unlike at the Villa in Ueno where the beds are hard as a rock.

The shower and bathroom (this is a closeup) is literally half the size of the room.

I got up, showered again and decided to go for a run in search of coffee. The hotel room is good sized for Tokyo and half of the room is the shower and bath area which is a full sized room of it's own.

This crow followed me on my run-- he was HUGE!

At 4am I was surprised to find the streets pretty busy-- mostly school kids in their uniforms. The Starbucks near the 109 shopping complex about six blocks from the hotel had employees in it hussling around (a very striking aspect here is the way workers give 100% in any job they have), but looked like it wouldn't be open for a while.

A nearby McDonald's was open, I never go to the ones in America and the last time I had a cup of their coffee it tasted like the free stuff at Jiffy Lube (don’t go there anymore either) but I thought I might risk a cup of coffee and sit and sketch for a while. The seating area wasn't open yet and apparently my Japanese ordering ability was off because trying to get a hot coffee was harder than it should have been.

Co-hee, HOT-o is how you order a hot coffee. Good luck with cream. After some pantomiming I was able to get both a tiny cup of coffee and an even tinier cream. I walked back to the hotel and sat in the lobby and worked in my sketchbook for a while to let V sleep in.

Around 6 she sent me a text asking if I was getting hungry-- the hotel restaurants both opened at 7 and we were going to eat there (complimentary for guests). I changed out of my gym clothes, showered again and we went to grab food.

Breakfast was a pleasant surprise-- fresh rolls, corn flakes, a nice fluffy egg (albeit with a spritz of ketchup on the side-- yuck) and of course salad, which I'm told over and over again Westerner's eat for breakfast. Later that day we grabbed a pizza with a friend which featured an amazing soft boiled egg on it— you can order one of these now at the UxLocale as long as Elaine is working— she loved the concept of it but its no longer on the menu— American’s are picky about runny eggs. But I’m jumping ahead here.

Pizza with a soft boiled egg on it-- AMAZING!

The term Westerner is applied to anyone not from Asia, and it doesn't bother me.

Foreigner is also used which sounds a bit harsher, but again in a nation that was closed to the rest of the world for centuries I can understand their lack of melting pot embrace.

Deep Face is another racial dig-- we westerner's have deep faces as opposed to the more appealing "flat face", this was all new to me. I was told this as if I would clutch my pearls and storm off in a huff— anyone who knows me understands my pearls are clutch free.

Artists depiction of the seats on the plane.

Jet lag is a tough thing, you think you're over it and then it smashes into you with little mercy. This time around I think Veronica had it worse than I did, she had a less pleasant flight. To be polite she didn't put her seat back, but the person in front of her did and it made for cramped quarters. I put mine back a bit and was able to catnap on the plane, but Jet Lag would still tap me on the shoulder at various points of the day.

Typically these first few days we'd be in by 8 and up by 4. I don't like to lay in bed when I'm awake so I took the opportunity for the slightly less oppressive humidity to do some running through the streets of Tokyo as a counter to it.

Which of course, leads to 3-4 showers a day, which leads to going through your clothes pretty quickly. There's a coin laundry only about 10 mins from the hotel so we went and got all our wash caught up on Saturday morning, then checked out of the Granbell and walked the few miles to the Villa hotel in Ueno where we would leave most ofour luggage for a day and go spend some time with friends up North.

We had a great time meeting new friends at a Japanese Cookout which had a wide variety of foods, mostly fish based which is a staple of Japanese diet. I politely nibbled but I’m not a big seafood guy— especially raw seafood, and I would laugh when our host made things like eggs and then said she didn't think we'd eat these kinds of thing. I think the perception among some Japanese is that American's do nothing but drink milk and eat steak (which is actually kind of true).

After a few more days in Tokyo we headed to Nagoya to spend the rest of the trip with my little brother and his lovely wife. They are great people and I look forward to seeing them every time we visit.

I love Tokyo- I love Japan. I love the order and the politeness. In my experience I’ve learned if someone asks where you’re from and you say “the United States” you’re looked at with a blank expression, but if you say “America” they are with you. The Japanese have no idea how big America is— they are convinced there are three kinds of Americans- tan blondes from California, cowboys from Texas and smart people from Boston. One of the people at the Japanese cookout had told me he and his wife wanted to visit the US for their next holiday— and that they hoped to rent a car and see both coasts. They were a little taken aback when I told them how much time it would take to drive across the country.

Japanese people I encountered are very interested in practising their English which they studied in school. They are very respectful of America and thankful for its help in rebuilding their own country after the war. They are convinced we don’t have seasons, we eat cold spaghetti and salad for breakfast and that we’ve never tried pizza.

I find a real charm in everyone there and I can’t wait to go back.