Day 1

From Japan: Day 001

Amusing name of the day: OHNO Marine Products

Looks like I made it in alright... (even if I didn't get to the hotel until about 9~9:30pm local time). No real problems... just had some trouble figuring how to get to the hotel from Kyoto Station (ended up having to take a taxi). First, let me apologize for the lack of pictures... 1) There were signs at the airport saying not to take pictures (it may have been only for certain areas, but I didn't want to take any chances). 2) Taking steady pictures from a moving bus while its getting dark is a little hard. 3) The highways have walls on the sides (you can probably see some in the pictures) making it even harder to take pictures. 4) Lugging around two large and two smaller heavy bags in the dark trying to figure out where to go... I didn't exactly feel like stopping to take pictures (just wanted to get the hotel), plus I was tired.
The flight here was pretty boring... even though everyone has a little TV, it only shows 6 different movies over and over (I think they were Alvin and the Chipmunks, Queen Elizabeth, No Country for Old Men, Lions for Lambs, and a couple of other boring movies). We did get two meals and two snacks... nothing exciting. Took a half-an-hour to get through the immigration line (luckily we were before the huge groups from Korea). Baggage and customs took no time. Getting cash didn't take much either (glad I brought traveler's checks... they had better exchange rate, although having to pay for the checks probably evens it out).
Took me a bit to figure out how to get to Kyoto... I knew I needed to take a Limousine Bus, but was originally looking at the Osaka information rather than the Kansai Airport information. Caught the 6pm Limousine Bus to Kyoto Station, got there about 7:30. As I mentioned before, there are walls on the sides of much of the highway. Some are curved over, some are plastic (or glass?), some are higher, some are shorter... just thought it was interesting...
Once I got to Kyoto Station, I had to figure out how to get to the hotel. The instructions said to take the Subway... took me a while to figure out where I needed to go to get to the Subway (ended up putting one of the smaller bags into the larger ones so I could carry it). Went to where you go down to the subway and realized that getting down the stairs would not be practical with the amount of bags I had... so I decided to go back and grab a taxi instead. Finally got to the hotel and got my room and everything. Its pretty small but has a frig, TV, internet, and bathroom (with a bidet, but it can be used as a regular toilet... so not a regular bidet). Also, the lights turn on by plugging in a stick attached to the room key to a place in the wall (I'll have a picture up tomorrow). Took me a little to figure that out -_-. Japanese TV is very entertaining... especially the commercials... so many cute little characters (I wanted to take a picture of the little plane characters at the airport). Japanese dubbed English shows like CSI and Monk are amusing to see.