Our trip so far...

Danielle here again. As I start to write this, it's approaching midnight on our second night in Koyoto.

Our trans-Pacific journey was fairly uneventful. Jeff & Kurt were kind enough to bring us to the Santa Barbara airport. Kurt was obviously distressed to say goodbye,
but I know his parents are doing their best to comfort him.

We were a bit nervous that our flight from Santa Barbara to San Francisco was delayed, as there wasn't much extra time to get over to the international terminal for our 2nd leg, but it was all OK. We arrived in time for "final call":

We were sitting in the middle row for the flight to Osaka, so I never actually saw out the window, so it didn't really feel like we crossed an ocean, but I suppose I'll take everyone's word for it. Once we got our bags and went through customs, it was a longish bus ride from Osaka to Kyoto. We're being treated very well; the people who coordinated the trip for us were waiting with a rented out 'limosine bus' just for us to take us to our hotels. (Here's Joel posing with it:)

Today we took a bus to the Tenryu-ji Temple and walked around the temple and a nearby bamboo garden.
So far, Max has been tricked into eating pork twice tonight. I was worried for his stomach, but he seems to be faring just fine.

Most notable observations of Kyoto so far: Everybody seems very friendly. There is not a single dirty car. There are McDonald's and 7-Elevens EVERYWHERE, but I've only seen one Starbucks. I think am taller than every single Japanese person, and I am probably heavier than any 2 Japanese people combined.

The talks start tomorrow at 9:30 in the morning at Kyoto University, which is a short bus or cab ride from our hotel.

More later...