extra leg room seats and it was well worth it! Neither one of us slept much - I think I got the most with an hour of and on, but it was quite enjoyable. I watched Letters from Juliet (or is that to...) and Babies, and read some. Joe watched a couple of movies and read also. We were served two meals plus a snack of hamburger and ice cream (go figure).Most of the time we were flying through fairly heavy clouds.
However, it opened up for us as we were over Alaska. Look at the snow on the mountains! Also, look at how big that engine is on the Boeing 777. Couldn't believe how big it was!As I said, it was raining fairly heavily, but that was the least of our problems (and those we survived). We got our luggage and made it through customs without a hitch. However, trying to find the rental car counter was challenging. Unable to read the directional signs in the airport, we wandered for about 30 minutes walking back and forth, up and down, until we finally found the counter.
Joe did a great deal of shaking his head "yes" with the car rental guy not really understanding everything he was saying. As you'll read, we have been totally challenged by our lack of knowledge of the language several times already, but the people here have been very helpful and patient everywhere. We did manage to get all the paperwork signed, and we were off. Armed with the Japanese version of Key Maps, we managed to get into Narita and could SEE the hotel, but actually getting to it proved to be yet another challenge. However, after multiple attempts, we finally arrived and checked in. Then, it was off to find the ladders! Two (or more) hours later, we managed to return to the room with only one. Finding a store that has ladders in Japan (when you speak and read no Japanese) has proven to be most frustrating. I think we have stopped at no less than 10 stores and have spent at least 5 hours in the quest but we have succeeded!I think we payed a lot at the Hotel Mercure because of location. The hotel and the ro
om were nothing special, it reminded me a great deal of the rooms we had in our European adventures. The room is fairly small and the bathroom floor is raised (to accomodate the plumbing) and is VERY small. The bed was great, nice and firm. I loved the pajamas and slippers (which are just part of a hotel room in Japan as we had them every night). Unfortunately, Internet connectivity was an additional charge, and since we could hardly stay awake, it didn't seem worth it to spend the money. 
One of the neatest things about the hotel was the car elevator. As you can imagine, parking is tight - apparently everywhere in Japan. This hotel had about a dozen spaces up on the 4 floor and the elevator was the only way to get the car up there. I know for many city dwellers in the US, this isn't that big a deal but for those of us from Houston...We weren't able to stay asleep long, so we were up and going
around 4 AM. We left the hotel around 5:30 AM, and headed out - still in the rain - for Tokyo. We decided that we just needed to head south since the weather has cleared up there, so traveling right through the center Tokyo was a necessary evil. However, it didn't prove to be too bad at that hour on a Sunday morning. We did have a hard time getting on and off the expressway. Our key map only has the names of the major expressways and some major streets.The exits for the expressway were all roads that we were toally
unfamiliar with and until we figured out how to use the GPS map in the car, we lost a little bit of time as we headed too far south around the west side of Tokyo - at least farther south than we had thought we would. Now that we can manipulate our GPS, we have been doing much better. These are some pictures of Tokyo suburbs on the southern end of Tokyo.Have lots more to share, especially the McDonald's story - but I need to get to bed! More tomorrow!
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