She says: Land of the Early Rising Sun

We went to bed around 8 pm local time last night, and the sun was polite enough to wake us up at 4:30 am local time to let us know that we had actually slept quite a bit and that our internal clocks should work at being reset. That's right. Japan is so efficient even its sun gets up early to make sure workers can see what they're doing.
I would also like to say that the ride from Narita was scenic (and laden with rice paddies) up until we hit the outer wards of Tokyo, then it became all cement buildings and metal and glass high rises. It's a strange mix. It feels no different than New York, except that instead of 7 buttons it has something like 26 and it's much, much bigger. I can't read the signs, but most places are polite enough to include images or display foods with numbers on them so you can just point or tell them what you want in numbers.
Our hotel room is rather nice, with a hot water maker for tea, one of the crazy robo-bidets, and a desk that comes with a built in electrical plug, fax line and LAN.
It's obviously an upper-class hotel. I just didn't realize how much so until we got a bellhop to show us to the elevator and up to the hotel room, then AROUND the hotel room despite only having our carry-on bags with us. She was incredibly sweet and polite and was very concerned that we thought it was humid in the room even though she didn't understand what it meant. We finally had to settled with "wet", so she showed us where the AC was. Very very sweet. I wanted to tip her, but I everything I've heard says it's a no-no, so I held off.
All in all so far it has been wonderful to be here (transportation is wickedly efficient and for this I am grateful.) and there have been only minor problems with communication. We appear to know enough to communicate the basics of what we need and that should get us by for now.
Breakfast, btw, was an interesting take on what we normally have. Fried potatoes (think potato wedge-fries) sausage links that were more akin to small hot dogs, poached eggs and almond jelly were to be had, as were sliced cheeses, fresh fruit, and a variety of pastries. The help was exceptionally polite and brought around coffee constantly. Milk, soy milk, water and both orange and tomato juices were available if they were needed. It was held in the Tea&Coffee Lounge (click the name for info and images) off the Lobby of the hotel, and as we are members of the guest club for Keio Plaza, we get to have the same kind of breakfast every morning we are here, if we so desire. A girl could get used to this kind of life!
Once our luggage arrives from the takyuubin service we are off to see Shinjuku and surrounding environs and have lunch at a local shop where we have to gesture and point at a picture to get someone to give us the right food. All of these little mini-adventures will build up our confidence as we go and I think by this time Wednesday it'll be second nature trying to get our point across.
Yours truly is currently enjoying the complimentary white and indigo yukata to relax in as she writes this entry, just wanted to point that out. Que up "I Think I'm Turning Japanese", please!
Slide show below is a quick look at all of the images from our travels, including the lovely complimentary disease-masks provided by ANA airlines. So far I can honestly say that was the scariest part of the trip, and we are 7,000 miles from home in a country that barely speaks our language. This is going to be utterly epic, and I'm glad we can share part of our trip with you.