So the first leg of our journey was to New York. On the first day Shoko was digging New York, talking about how she could see us living here in the future. Heh...by the end of the week she was saying "I don't think I need to come back to New York ever again". New York is basically like Tokyo, except much dirtier. Someday I'm going to go back to New York and take a bunch of pictures of dirt/trash/filth, and then I'll take pictures of clean Tokyo streets...and I'll have an exhibition where the photos are divided into Tokyo and New York, with titles for each. The title for the Tokyo section will be "Tokyo: Winning the War on Chaos", while the New York side will be "New York: Losing the War on Chaos". We compared Tokyo and New York throughout the week, with Tokyo winning (in our minds, anyway) most of the contests-like public transportation, cleanliness, safety, etc. Though I think New York wins when it comes to food-mainly because it is cheaper than in Tokyo. I think though that our perception of New York was skewed by the fact that we were staying in Times Square, which....sucked. Way too many tourists. I much preferred just wandering around the East Village.
Highlights from New York include going to a Yankees game (vs. the Mariners)---
We also caught the Lion King on Broadway, which was fantastic, and saw my friend's sister as she and her classmates gave their final presentations for a class at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Ah, student films...it was very cool though.
After a week in New York we flew to DC. We were "randomly selected for additional screening" at LaGuardia. It was ok because we had plenty of time and the TSA people weren't rude or anything. Still...it was annoyinig. We got to DC and went to some Smithsonians, and also to the Spy Museum, which was great. After a few days there we went to Baltimore to attend the wedding of a friend of mine from middle/high school. Here's the four of us at the wedding:
So after the wedding we went to Reagan National to fly to Chicago as there is no direct flight to Tokyo from DC. Again we were "randomly selected for additional screening". Grr...so we went to their special screening area, and there was a group of middle eastern-looking gentlemen also being screened. Big shocker...they actually let us go first, while they lectured the other people about what was going to happen.
I was not particularly proud to be an American citizen at that particular moment. So I was talking to the TSA guy, and he said that if you change your flight you will get flagged. Both times we had reservations for a later flight but ended up taking an earlier flight. So that explains that, I suppose.
So now we're back, and it's definitely good to be home. 2 weeks in a foreign country (ha) is a long time. Next up: work!
