Thanks, blogger, but I can't read Japanese

I'm in Japan!
It's 9:47 am here, and I've been awake since six and up since seven, and neither of my roommates has stirred yet, unless they got up and left before six, which seems awfully early since we all went to bed at the same time, and the one has the day off and the other doesn't work til 1pm. So I'm tiptoeing around trying to be quiet, but the hardwood floors are creaky. My luggage should be delivered shortly, so I should put on some clothes to go down and get it, and then I can go out and start my day--I have to register for my alien registration card and find an adapter for my laptop power cord. The plugs/sockets are the same as in the U.S., but all the sockets in my apartment have two holes, and my laptop plug has three prongs.

I talked to a flight attendant, who coincidentally is from Rio Rancho, and who was knitting her first sock. I was knitting (yet another) Jaywalker. I started it Sunday night, just to have something on the needles when I went through security, and am already on the gusset decreases. Go, sleeplessness!

No pictures or amazing cultural insights or anything yet--most of the time I've spent in Japan so far it's been dark out, and I've either been sleeping, showering, or struggling vainly not to look like I'm struggling as I stagger from airport shuttle train to bullet train to local subway to apartment. My apt building is on a one-lane street along a canal. Our balcony overlooks something that's either a cemetery or a tombstone store. My room is tiny but I'll just have to become neat and organized and not buy a lot of unnecessary stuff. It has a window, through which, all night, I heard this bird that sounds like a person yelling. There's no screen, and we kept the balcony door open all night, so apparently flying insects are not a problem.

Oh, and Blogger and Google have translated everything handily into characters for me, so I have to go by memory which thing to click on... hope this is "submit"...