We have landed

Pictures added!

We have landed. We have landed several times in fact. More details to come, but her are the basics:

Flights!
(Chicago - Minneapolis - Tokyo - Osaka)

Minneapolis to Tokyo was on a two-level 747-400 (huge plane). I got some unique photos of Northern Canada/Alaska/Russia (?) from the plane that turned out well since it was daylight during the entire flight.





Trains!
(Osaka - Hotel)

We were exhausted by the time we got here, but fortunately it didn't take a lot of time to get our bags and get through customs.

Hotel!
(Osaka Station Hotel)

It was tiny, but we liked it. My first experience with a bidet, not bad! :) Pictures of the tiny bathroom and tiny room soon! We had a nice little breakfast at the hotel as well (Mia had the Japanese breakfast, I had the "Western" breakfast).

Shinkansen! Super Express Train
(Osaka Station Hotel - Shin-Yamaguchi)

This was a dream come true for me even though it was 'only a train ride.' I remember reading about the Japanese high-speed trains when I was in high school. Man, these trains are amazing. Really, really smooth. Really, really on-time. Really expensive, but really clean and comfortable as well. They look cool as well.

Takako (from our school) picked us up in her red Ford Mustang (the only one in town) and took us to our apartment where we set up our Futon beds and promptly fell asleep for several hours, waking up at 12:30am (oops!)

We met the couple that we're replacing this morning. Joe and Liz are really nice and I'm sure will be teaching us a lot before they head back home.

We're heading out to have lunch with them and Takako in a few minutes so I'll post more later.

We're here, we're safe, all is well!
Take care!

We posted pictures and descriptions on facebook, this is the public link