Apparently there was an earthquake (and possible oncoming tsunami) about 1000km from Tokyo. I say "apparently" because even though we were in Tokyo all day, we didn't hear a word of it. There are some warnings on the TV here, but they're for the areas much further north than we'll be. It seems to be much more of a story in the US than here.
Bottom line: We're all fine, and everything is still on schedule.
Today we spent about 10 hours in Tokyo. We took the train from Narita to Tokyo, which took about an hour. Our first stop was Asakusa, which is like a giant outdoor market:
We ate lunch in a little cafeteria-type place in the basement of a building just off the main street. Then we went to Ginza, which kind of like the Times Square of Tokyo. High-end stores everywhere:
Then we went to Akihabara, which is the electronics district. There were big (7 stories tall) electronics department stores, as well as little "flea-market type" shops that sell the "raw materials" of computer and audio and video equipment (circuit boards, transistors, plugs, fans, etc):
The selection was way cool, lots of handheld radios and GPS's. But the prices were no good - a GPS that's $500 in the US was $1200 there. Al bought lots of things, but all I bought was a splitter to let us connect more than 1 computer to the Internet at a time. Then we went to dinner:
Erica had onion rings and garlic bread. Paul and I had tacos, chips, and salsa.