For Relaxing Times...

This place is crazy. It's been a very intense couple of
days, with a hefty mixture of all-day seminars and hefty drinking
excursions at night. And we all keep waking up at about 5:45 am
everyday. Tokyo is by far the strangest and most intriguing city I've
ever been in. It bombards the senses, but is full of quiet holes in
the wall where it seems as if only a few people even know about it.
The streets are very quiet in the morning, but there is a flurry of
activity beginning in the evening and going way into the night. And
all types of people too--salarymen, schoolchildren, everybody. Don't
they have stuff to do in the morning?

The city seems to be built on several different levels, and the whole
things fits together like an elaborate 3-D jigsaw puzzle, with whole
different layers of shopping districts tucked right underneath what
you thought was "the ground", and with subway entrances popping up
between small shops or restaurants on tiny pedestrian-only streets.

Last night, we went to an izakaya, which is like a pub, and had a
10-course meal with all you can drink alcohol. Had some sake that
would knock your socks off. Actually all the sake has been top-drawer
thus far. It doesn't even seem as if you're drinking alcohol. Now when you're driking Santory beer, you definitely know you're drinking beer (for any of those who have seen Lost in Translation, you'll understand why I said "For relaxing times, make it Santory Time" every time I refilled my glass!)

So today I'm riding the bullet train with the other people from my
prefecture, and we are going to leave the urban jungle of Tokyo for
the wilds of rural Japan, where most of us, yours truly included, will
be stationed. I'm told that it's a beautiful place, and I can't wait
to finally see where I'll be spending the next year of my life.