We did it with a free map!

So here's a picture of my new buddy Carl P. I met Carl because I volunteered to give him a ride from Santa Rosa to the San Francisco pre-orientation. I was supposed to be a last resort for him but turned out to be the only resort... Lucky me I decided to do him that favor. Because the dude rocks. He's fluent in Chinese and Korean and has lived for ages in both countries. This guy moved to Korea when he was a freshman in college and ended up staying there for 8 years! Whoa!

Anyway, here we are on the streets of Tokyo flashing our bottles of some drink that was being passed out for free. It was really sweet!
Later that day we walked around town in the Harajuku district, about a two-mile walk from the district where we are staying (Shinjuku). We even saw some genuine ol' Harajuku girls and I was able to convince them to let us take a picture of them. I asked in English and they responded in Japanese. And after Courtney took a picture of me and them, they had me take a picture of Courtney and them using their cell phone. I stood there awkwardly because I wanted to put my arms around them but figured it was best that I didn't. That's the Japanese way of doing things, I figured.

I made it!

Man, Japan is awesome. So much going on. It's 23:30 local right now, which is 07:30 where I just flew from (San Francisco). I'm planning to go to bed in 30 minutes. Hopefully, I'll wake up at about 8 a.m. and not suffer at all from "JET" lag...
A funny thing happened at the check-in counter at SFO. I was told I had been assigned an aisle seat. When I requested a window seat instead, I was told that we passengers were not allowed to change seats due to a "penis" allergy. Of course, what the agent meant to say was "peanuts" allergy.
And while boarding, several JAL employees wished us a good "fright."
It's kind of like Swiss German. You have to get used to hearing familiar words pronounced differently.
In any case, we are staying at the Keio Plaza hotel, smack dab in the heart of the Shinjuku district.
We went out for our first meal. We found a place that does Soba noodles, but it took us a few seconds to realize that you had to purchase a ticket in order to order. You just put your money in a vending machine, choose the number of the item you want, push the corresponding number, and take your ticket and change to the cook. A few minutes later, you have your noodles.
I like to talk to people, so I started asking a fellow customer about this and that. The guy was pretty cool. He was surprised that I decided to go with the hot noodles instead of the cold noodles, since he said that in the summer, people usually order the cold noodles.
Anyway, another cool thing happened. We just happened to find the bus that goes to Mt. Fuji (or Fuji-san) after discussing whether we should attempt to summit her. And I talked to yet another cool Japanese dude who was getting on the bus. He told me that most people climb Fuji-san at night so that they can experience the sunrise the following morning. I wanted to jump on the bus right then and there. But alas, I had shorts and a T-shirt on and the temperature atop Fuji-san, according to the guy was 4 C (about 40 F). So that plan is on hold for now.