so ... i'm home now. i will definitely miss japan, but it's good to be home. i missed all of my animals very much. also, i didn't fully realize it until i got on here tonight, but i think i also missed my computer. my brother's computer was convenient and nice to have available, but argh, i hate windows. why does every windows user that i know always have some sort of issue with their computer? speaking of computer issues, the keyboard problem here seems to have mysteriously fixen itself while i was away, so that's good.

when i checked in at narita around 2:15pm today (yesterday), they said my flight was overbooked and they were going to put me on a continental direct flight instead. i'd get home nearly four hours earlier, since i didn't have to fly all the way to atlanta and then back again, so that was fine with me. they told me to come back at 4pm to get my boarding pass. at 4pm, though, i was told i'd be on my original flight(s). sitting on the plane, being tired & all cramped up in small coach class seats, watching your plane fly several hours out of the way on the little screen overhead can be quite frustrating.

we crammed quite a bit into one day. i think we did more walking today than we have on any day before. my feet were actually hurting on the train ride home, and it was 'crush' hour so we were all crammed into the subway cars like sardines. i eventually got a seat, but by that time we only had 2 stops to go. riding the bike home from the station nearly did me in. my brother got me some milk coffee, though, and i think the caffeine worked.

speaking of caffeine, the day i arrived in tokyo, i found a vending machine with mountain dew. that is the only time i've been able to find it while in japan. there is a serious mountain dew crisis going on over here.

see, i know next to nothing about tokyo. i'm all saying the party is in setagaya-ku, because that's what it looked like to me from the address, but actually the area is called shimokitazawa. see how that works? yeah, i'm stupid.

i'm surprised i'm still awake. i got up at 6:30am, which is really way too early - but you know, we had to catch the train to the other train, etc. hakone was nice. i could have spent all day at the open-air museum. (here's some info in english.) i think i took too many pictures there. i'm on my fifth roll of film now.

i managed okay with my fear of nakedness around strangers. after a few minutes you just kind of forget you're naked. the hot springs were really nice. the place we went to had about 6 different pools and some kind of cedar box thing you sat inside of and closed the lid, and also two big huge ceramic pots thing full of the hot spring water. i kind of felt like i was being boiled for dinner. after all the nice hot water all i wanted to do was sleep - but i still haven't done that yet. soon.

my brother is having a party for me tomorrow night at trocadero in setagaya-ku. we're going to have dinner and then hang out, so please feel free to drop by if you're in the area. you can meet tatsuhiko, my new style japanese boyfriend. heh, i'm so kidding, i just wanted to say 'new style japanese boyfriend'. tatsuhiko is a guy i met on new year's eve. i only wish i had a new style boyfriend. so many cute boys/men/guys/whatever all over the place, but they're always taken. even here in japan - couples, couples everywhere.

my brother's laptop mouse thing is out of control. it's just moving all over the screen on it's own and the start menu thing keeps popping up and it's driving me batty. so with that, i shall go to sleep.

i haven't gone past new year's eve in my paper journal. actually, i haven't even finished new year's eve yet. we've been doing so much each day. today we went to ueno zoo and i fell in love with many animals.

i think i may just finish out my writings and then attempt to make a travel diary upon my return home. it would probably be more interesting with photos, anyway.

we're going to hakone tomorrow. i'm still nervous about going to the hot springs and sharing nakedness with complete strangers, but considering that they don't really care at all, i don't know why i'm so nervous. public baths are just so not part of american culture.

speaking of culture, this morning we were going to go to a big department store (i forget the name) for opening - my brother said all the workers line up and bow to customers as you enter the store. so we get there and there's a huge line - down the street, around the corner, down a couple of blocks. we're wondering what the ?? so there's a thing they do on new year's with these surprise packages. you pay a set amount and you're guaranteed that whatever is in the package is worth at least that amount. if you get lucky, you might get over 10x the value. so this is what the line was for. we tried another store, too, but the lines were just as bad so we gave up and went to eat. at least 6 people were injured in the rush of the crowd at the first store we went to this morning. my brother said he read in the paper that people got trampled in another place yesterday. there's some culture for you. japanese shopping maniacs.

also, the pachinko (is that how you spell it?) parlor was quite insane.

i must sleep now as it's nearly 11pm. we have to leave here by 7:15 so that we arrive in time to catch the 'romance train' to hakone at 8:55 tomorrow morning.

i've been bad and haven't updated. i haven't even been writing in a paper journal. i must rectify that soon or else i'm sure to forget things. we've done so much in only two days and i still have nearly another week here.

tonight i am going to write everything down and perhaps then i will transfer it here. i must write about the drunk guy who ate food off the floor, all the nice people i met - i've already forgot half of their names, roppongi, the crazy irish guy in the british pub, the japanese guys who were trying to get me to say what they said was "happy new year" - but i knew it wasn't - so who knows what they would have really had me saying, all the people grabbing and kissing, the navy guy lost on the trains and the backstreet boy navy guy, the karaoke place that was really nice but all with incorrect song lyrics ... yeah, all that plus more.

happy new year, everyone.