Arrival to Sendai, Japan

The purpose of my trip to Japan is to attend an international conference being held in the city of Sendai. Wayne and I traveled from Tokyo to Sendai via the Shinkansen (bullet train). An incredible ride, we were here in about 1.5 hours. Our best guess was that the train was traveling at ~250 kph in the less populated regions.

Once we arrived, we opted to walk an expected eight blocks from the train station to our hotel (on my suggestion). Some dark clouds abovehead had looked menacing earlier, but appeared to being holding off from heavy showers. Unfortunately, this did not last. We arrived to the hotel looking like a pair of drowned rats. A hot bowl of udon warmed us back up and let us dry up while we waited to check into the hotel. (Incredibly, the hotel would not allow us into our rooms an hour before their 2 pm check-in time, even though I was certain that they were made up and ready.)

My final note for this post is that I was wrong when I suggested that the hotel room in Tokyo was small. It had room to move, not like the tiny (and stale smoke-smelling) room I have for five nights in Sendai.