Linda Santoro’s Blog

Many of you were right! I had sushi last night at the Japanese Consul General’s house.

Today we got to get up early, go to the gym and then head out to the airport. I left the airport in San Francisco at 11:30 am on Monday. I got into Tokyo at 3:30 pm on Tuesday. It was a ten hour flight. I am going to sleep at around 10:50 pm Tokyo time. Can anyone tell me what time it is in Connecticut when I’m going to sleep? I’ll give you a hint. It is a 14 hour time difference and it is Tuesday for you.

It took us a long time to get to Tokyo from the airport. You can see a photo of me at the airport. I was already tired.

Then we met with some Fulbright Scholars. Those are people who are from Japan who were given a special honor and traveled to the United States. They took us, in small groups, to dinner. My group went to a restaurant that was right next to our hotel. Our Japanese leader ordered the food for us. Part of the menu was in English but we still weren’t sure about the foods on it. To start our meal, we had something green that looked like cooked spinach or seaweed. Our guide told us the name but we still didn’t understand what we were eating. It was fun to try it though. Next we had salad with raw fish (delicious) and some grey noodles in brown sauce. The sauce was mildly spicy, very salty and also delicious. Last we had some meat on skewers. It all tasted like teriyaki chicken and beef. Then we tasted a pink meat that was . . . almost crunchy and rubbery all at the same time. It was chicken cartilage. We finished the meal with some green tea.

Tomorrow we will visit different places around Tokyo. I will try to take a photograph from my room. Then you can guess which floor I am on. Remember, my hotel has 47 floors.

Click on the photos to make them larger. I’ll keep working on getting them just the right size on the page.

Miss Santoro