Arrival in Utsunomiya Japan

Sunday, February 28, 2010
Arrival in Utsunomiya Japan
The group of 15 from Honda of America arrived at Japan Narita Airport around 3:00pm Saturday. I am a little nervous with the police and their white gloves and mask watching us as we make our way to customs. Standing in line I am hoping this is a easy process, it was finally my turn and the customs guy pointed to this machine where you are to place both your pointer fingers on the places marked so they can scan your fingerprints into their system. After following those directions I then had my picture taken without warning to put into Japan's database. The customs agent then sent me to immigration where I was only one question and that is how long are you going to be in our country and I told him 6 weeks. He confirmed my picture and Id matched them to my airline tickets. Was so glad when we were all on our way out of there......
Next stop was to cash in all our American money for yen. Marlon filled out the necessary paperwork and we now have all our money in yen. Marlon said that to tell how much something cost in American just take off the last 2 zeros. Example 5000 yen in American will be 50 dollars.

We then had to carry our luggage down many flights of stairs and find our way through crowded streets to the train station to buy tickets to Utsunomyia from Narita.
Down more steps with our luggage and finally we are all standing waiting for our train to arrive. We have now been up for 20 hours and can't wait to get to our hotel. : -) 2 hours later we are getting off the train and are again pulling our luggage with us to walk to the hotel.
When I saw the hotel I did not think it was by no means fancy. The entrance was very plain but clean. Its funny how they have machines that you use to check yourself in and pay for your room. They have people at the front desk but they basically make copies of you passport and answer questions. I'm so hungry and so so so tired. Our room was on the 7th floor and we were assigned room 714. I honestly did not know what to expect to find when we opened the door but to my surprise the room was fine. Put the luggage down and laid on the bed it was very firm and low to the floor but the bed size was almost king size. The TV is the size of a large computer screen. The room does have a small refrigerator and a pot to heat water in. One room left to check and that is the bathroom. I smiled as I looked inside and saw the tub its very deep but also very short, most Americans would have to bend their knees to sit down in the tub LOL Now the toilet is to die for OMG high technique to start with it has a temperature control for the water. When you are done going to the bathroom you have several options to choose from. One choice is how warm you want the water to spray on your bottom, how much pressure you want and do you want it sprayed on the front part of the back part of your underside or all over. I am so loving our room very nice and very clean. The room also supplies you with white cotton button down night shirt and slippers. : -)
We have all decided to freshen up and we are going to go eat at a place called Sammy's across the wrong side of the tracks. Marlon and I decide to leave early so he could show me around the area so I could get comfortable with my surroundings. Went through La La Square where there are multitudes of shops and places to eat. Will be coming back here again when I have time to shop. Time to start heading to Sammy's so we can meet up with the rest of the group. During our walk to Sammy's we met a guy who was doing tricks with a basketball so cool. He did a performance show for us and I took his picture. He was happy to talk with us wish him all the luck, he did tell us he lived in CA for 2 years and it was a blast living there. He reached out and shuck our hands and we started back on our way to Sammy's. The way there was a little scary pretty dark really and just didn't feel that safe you can tell your on the other side of the tracks. When we got to Sammy's i was like OMG is this the place? It looks a little scary to go in there was mafia standing outside and hookers walking around. One of the mafia guys started to talk with me and Marlon grabbed my arm and pulled me away and told me to stay away from them and do not talk with them. We then went inside while the mafia guys just watched us. I started to go in and sit down because i could see the rest of the group but again Marlon grabbed my arm and said NO SHOES allowed. WOW I took my shoes off and pulled out a wooden number 28 and locked my shoes in the boxes hanging on the walls. Finally we were walking in to sit with the group. My first drink in Japan was something called a Orange Shochu. It was served a very large mug and tasted like orange crush, wow it was delicious. I drank one and 1/2 of another and could not drink any more feeling to good. The table was filled with food which included squid tentacles, fried and regular gyoza which is a fried dumpling I loved it. The flavor, texture and experience of eating them was great. At the end we all ordered sirloin steaks and potato salad. In Japan as I have learned is when things come in a set do not ask to break the set because it will not happen. If the meal comes with potato salad then don't ask for potato fries because it won't happen. Now I must say the potato salad was so good, it has a dollop of horseradish mixed in and it was absolutely the best i have ever had in my life, no kidding. The steak was cut up in bite size pieces covered in some type of gravy and was so tender. I truly had a wonderful time. Now the rest of the group was going to go to Sammy's 1 but we decided we were done for the night. Deb and Scott went with us to head back to the hotel. Deb was wanting a Diet Coke so we also walked to a store that looks like a 7~11. Finally back to Hotel Richmond, we all went to our rooms time to hit the hay good night........