Change of Venue

I've moved from the neighborhood where I've been staying to the new location in Tokyo. This is near the French, Chinese and German embassies. I certainly wasn't going to try and haul my luggage through the subway, so changing hotels require a cab ride that came close to the equivalent of $30. I'm only now starting to get a sense of exactly how enormous Tokyo is. It's hard to take it all in.
After I packed this morning and checked out, the men at the front desk of the hotel in Nakano allowed me to leave my bags in the lobby until I was ready to catch a cab. I walked back to Rick's house and had some tea with Joyce. Back at the hotel, I asked about getting a cab, and after an intense conversation between the men at the front desk, they were pretty sure where I was going, and that I needed to cross the street. So, one of them helped me out the door, up and over the pedestrian bridge across the street, and hailed a cab for me. This kind of assistance still astounds me.
The cab driver had very little English, and I have no Japanese, but he seemed pretty happy to have found the new hotel, which is tucked away from any main street that I could discern. All of the cabs in Tokyo have GPS. I don't know how they could it otherwise.
We finished up the workshop yesterday with an all-day class session and then dinner, hosted by Joyce and David, back at Rick's house. The time has gone by so quickly.
The rest of this day will be resting and laundry. I might go walk around the neighborhood later. Kenny arrives this evening, and then I guess we will do whatever it is we've got planned. I keep losing track of the details, and trust that it will all work out.
Here are a few photos from the old neighborhood.