We arrived safely in Japan on March 31. It is so much nicer to be here when it isn't a gajillion degrees!

I am currently sitting in the middle of a freezing alleyway in the dark near my ryokan so that I can get on the internet. I am staying in a small town near Tokyo called Noda, and this is what you do to get an unencrypted wifi connection! So bear with me if my freezing fingers or rush to get this posted before I'm booted off results in numerous spelling errors.

Can you believe I have a few musings, even only after 24 hours? Can I get a hell yes for:

**the cherry blossoms being out in full force

**118 yen to the dollar

**renting a mobile phone for 500 yen a day

**smuggling 4 pork salamis and 4 tins of anchovy stuffed Spanish olives through customs for my Japanese friends whose salamis I sent at Christmas were quarantined and incinerated

**hot wet naps before every meal, and one free beer a day from our ryokan, not that it matters because...

**...Chu-Hi is in the hizza again

**Japanese ofuro and then futon

**plentiful tuna onigiri and cold green tea

**organized parent-child costumed dance numbers on a Saturday at the mall

**my man bag fetish being satisfied at every turn, serious yo!

**no jet lag!

**and again, getting to wear a coat and look cute for once in Japan because its not hotter than hell

Noda, where we are staying while Trevor gets his ninja on, is a nice little town with a lot of shitamachi spirit, and not too far from the grandeur of Tokyo. I am really looking forward to languid days interspersed with mad dashes into Harajuku and Shibuya/Shimokitazawa for shopping orgies. Yay!

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Wrote this earlier today, when I was internetless.

**

So, capital F Fashion. Japan is a mecca, as many know. But I have to say WTF to the fashion scene at the moment. What the hell is up, yo? Where is the risk-taking fashion I see every time I come here? Everybody has some kind of sweatpant and sneaker fetish going on right now, like refugees from some Ludacris video. I didn't pay good money to come here and be crushed under the stifling weight of yards of fleece. If fleece is going to be de rigeur at the very least want to be dazzled by folks turning America's uniform on its head.

Then again, I am sitting outside Mister Donut in Noda.

But, thank god, you can still count on the old ladies to look fly. Why, there goes one now. Luminous in an fleshy peach sheath with just enough understated sequin bling to make it fantastique. And she's out buying groceries. For shame, fleece-ridden twenty-somethings, for shame.

Everyone here is also wearing paper masks. It is pretty smogtastic right now, and I'm sure the blossoms are having a field day with the poor souls who are afflicted by allergies. And covering every part of your body is so Japan anyway, so I don't question the masks too much. But why SMOKE while you are wearing one?