Konichiwa from Tokyo

I'm really here! It doesn't quite seem real yet ... or maybe that's just the jet lag talking.

The 15-hour flight was not the worst I've ever taken -- that would be the 10-hour flight from Frankfurt to Chicago with a broken tailbone -- and the food (remember food on planes?) wasn't half bad. And just around the time I started to think "I have to get off this plane, or I'm gonna pull a Jack Bauer," I saw on the little "you are here" screen that the plane was approaching the northernmost islands, so I didn't have to hijack it.

It probably won't surprise anyone to learn that the Japanese run the world's most efficient airport. Narita is spotless, the escalators and moving sidewalks are space-age smooth, I cleared quarantine, immigration and customs in 10 minutes, and my luggage was already on the carousel when I got to it. Airport managers of the world, take note ...

I walked out of the airport expecting to see something out of "Lost In Translation." But Narita is about 40 miles from downtown Tokyo, and the surrounding area looks nothing like Tokyo. Lined with trees and noise-abatement walls, the Kanto Expressway looks for all the world like any highway in Virginia -- except everyone's driving on the left. Then we drove through an industrial area containing the headquarters of nearly every electronic and automobile I've owned. We also passed two random, ginormous Ferris wheels (one, I was told, is the world's largest) and the Eiffel Tower (it's a radio tower, but it looks just like the one in Paris. Except it's orange.)

And then we were downtown, and that really does look like Tokyo. (Because, duh, it is.) I was surprised to see how many signs are in English -- it's very trendy here to use English, so it's pretty easy to figure out what most businesses are. (The fluency of the sign writers, however, varies wildly. One colleague saw a T-shirt that said "You broke my arm." My new mission in Tokyo is to find and purchase that shirt.)

I unpacked, did a little B&E of Stripes' Tokyo office -- which was empty -- and realized I had no idea where my co-workers were or how to contact them (my cell doesn't work here, and I'm quickly realizing how addicted to it I am), so I wandered back toward Hardy Barracks (a military owned housing/lodging/crash pad for drunken troops where I'm staying, and which conveniently is across a parking lot from the Tokyo office, so for the next 10 days I have a 15-second commute) thinking "I have nothing to do." Followed by, "You're in Tokyo. There are 10 million things to do on this block."

And then co-workers Tim and Sam spotted me, and rescued me from an evening of wandering around Tokyo lost.

Our plan was to eat dinner at a Brazilian restaurant, but the 90-minute wait deterred us, so instead we went to a place called Tangu, whose orange vinyl booths reminded me of a 70s-era generic IHOP. It's actually an izikaya -- a diner-like place that serves small plates of Japanese food. (Like tapas, but Japanese.) They thoughtfully provided an English menu with many (hopefully) inexact translations -- we passed on the "nuggets of chicken gristle," "big eyes tuna sashimi," "abdomen meat of bonito" and "delicately fried squid liver and all." What we did have: gozya (potstickers), shrimp with mayonnaise sauce, fried rice with crab meat, white asparagus, yakitori (chicken on skewers), and other things I couldn't begin to spell or describe. Tons of fun. Then we went to a bar in Shibuya called BYG, that boasts an amazing selection of music on vinyl and CD, and takes requests. I discovered umeshu -- plum wine that goes down nice and sweet. (This morning I discovered my head was stapled to the pillow.) We drank til midnight, telling stories about other nights of drinking (most of which ended in injuries).

And then I slept -- for the first time in 37 hours.