Maui 7/Japan 1

Sorry about the preachy/angsty last post. The rest of the time in Maui was pretty chill-my surfing improved noticeably, and I got a lot of planning that needed to be done done. I also got to go surfing with Bruce Luxton again, and had a nice dinner with him and Pom, his wife. I left on the 23rd, and took a really weird red-eye, featuring a half-hour technical stop in the Marshall Islands and a three-hour layover in Guam, to Tokyo. I did manage to get quite a bit of sleep, as I had an entire row to myself from Honolulu to Guam. But apparently I wasn't nearly well-rested enough to deal with Tokyo. I started out by incurring the pity of a customs agent at the sight of my huge bag, and proceeded to take the wrong {not too wrong, thankfully}train; wander for a solid 20 minutes in search of my hostel, only finding it with the help of a receptionist at some sort of business college; struggle with the concept of exiting a subway station until a friendly clerk helped me out; wander around Asakusa for an hour before being able to muster the guts to go to a restaurant; take the wrong train back to Asakusabashi, bringing the total I spent on subway tickets today into the triple digits; and get lost trying to find my hostel again. You have every right to fear for me. Luckily, Tokyo's pretty easy, apart from the language barrier. I saw some pleasant temples and shopping areas in my afternoon excursion to the historic Edo district of Asakusa. I forgot my camera, but luckily for you every other tourist in the world brought theirs, so if you're curious about historic Asakusa you can definitely find some nice photos. The train ride was also pleasant; I got a good chance to observe all the little, superficial differences in detail, apart from the obvious language barrier, that distinguish Japan from the US, like the vaguely exotic trees, the stubbornly Asian dragonscale roofs, occasional rice paddies - all to the frenetic music of a Japanese experimental group called Boredoms, that pretty well sum up the weird splicing of East and West that now defines Japan. Anyhow, I should be able to get along a little better now that I'm settled in and the first stages of culture shock are wearing off. Love you all.