happy new year!

It's 2005! Yay!

This has to count as my strangest New Years ever. Right now, I am sitting in a hotel room in a Japanese suburb called Katsutadai. I was scheduled to fly from Detroit back to Hong Kong via Narita airport (Tokyo) on the 31st. However, my plane in Detroit was delayed by four hours. By the time I arrived in Tokyo, I couldn't connect to any flights to Hong Kong. Actually, none of the passengers were able to connect to their flights. So the airline is putting everyone up for the night in various hotels.

This particular business hotel is half an hour from the airport at least. I'm told many Japanese families like to celebrate New Years in hotels. No evidence of that here. The hotel restaurant was closed before our arrival at 11.15. There is no lobby to speak of. There is free internet, which I am using to post this entry.

Judging from Japanese TV at least, New Years is celebrated differently than in the States. The main broadcaster, NHK, didn't even have a countdown! NHK televised someone banging a bell at a Shinto temple on Shikoku. Another channel, CTV, had muscled men in Mexican wrestling masks break open a barrel of sake with wooden mallets. (For some reason, there were two women in schoolgirl outfits cheering them on.) I was able to find one station with an American-style countdown. Of course, that was followed by Japanese boy bands. So a strange but quiet New Years for me.