Posting from Japan

I have an hour at an internet cafe, and I'm taking advantage of it to tell you that I got here safely after a very long, but productive flight. I didn't have internet access at our hotel last night, but we'll have access tonight when we get to the contest hotel.

So far, I'm loving the food. We hit a conveyor-belt sushi place and I got my fill for 1500 yen. This morning the hotel breakfast was an elaborate affair. It was filling, but also very well presented.

The internet cafe I'm in is pretty cool. For 380 yen we get a computer station for an hour. However, we're also surrounded by manga everywhere, full volumes of almost anything you could ever want to read (it you're into that sort of thing). I could imagine it's a pretty good way for youth to hang out, get free drinks and chill.

So far today we have wandered a lot of downtown Tokyo. Our hotel was near Akihabara, which we checked out last night. However, it was really late and most of the stores were closed. We may check it out in more detail later. This morning we walked south to the imperial palace, and found every entrance and museum closed. Apparently Mondays and Fridays are holidays here. We walked around the palace, taking in the sights until we got half-way round near the Diet and went south-west to Rippongo, where we are now.

The Rippongo district is well known as a party district for foreigners, and I can see why. There are bars and clubs and karaoke places everywhere. It's quite impressive, except that not much of it is open this early. If it were the evening, the lights would be lit and people would be rushing in and out of these places. Perhaps sometime later when we want to get away from the other nerds and be crazy. However, I like being cheap so the less money I spend the better.

That's all for my update right now. I'll let you know how the afternoon pans out. I will also transfer my pictures later.