Some First Impressions

Well, it's about 4:30AM (local time, of course) but my body still seems to think it's the middle of the day and therefore not sleepy time. So I figured I'd get some studying and writing in this morning before it's late enough to start unpacking stuff and making a racket. Apparently it's a big no-no to be making noises in the middle of the night here.

The Flight to Tokyo

The plane, by the way, didn't have any outlets. Sucks. I did bring some books and also my paper journal, which was nice to be able to write in. The cool thing about the plane ride, though, was that they had individual touch screens on the back of every seat, so I was able to watch movies and play cheap and dumb little games like Tetris or hangman. As a sidenote, the Muppet movie was as good as I was expecting it to be, and "We Bought a Zoo" was way better than I thought it would be. Kinda sappy, but okay.

Useful, but maddening

Another thing you could do with the touch screen was view the flight plan, a graphical representation of the route the plane was taking. It would plot the plane's location along the route and display the time in Chicago, Tokyo, and wherever it was that the plane happened to be at the moment. That was both nice and excruciating, because it was too hard to resist the temptation to stare at the little plane icon and think about exactly how much longer there was to go.

The worst part of the plane ride: I was starting to feel relieved when there were only two hours to go in the flight until I remembered that after the Tokyo flight I still had to run to catch another flight to Nagoya. Soul crushing.

The best part of the plane ride: I decided I'd try to drink myself to sleep.

Me: Do you guys have wine or something?
Flight Attendant: Sure, do you want red or white?
Me: Red will be fine. How much?
Flight Attendant: [Handing me a bottle of wine] Oh, it's free.
Me: :O

Customs, the Flight to Nagoya, Arrival

Customs was not nearly as bad as I expected it to be. That's probably due to the fact that as soon as I got off the plane, someone handed me a bright orange "priority" slip of paper to show the people at customs so I could jump to the front of the line since my connecting flight was leaving in just over an hour. It all went pretty smoothly and everyone at the airport was incredibly helpful.

Heh. "Travelator."

The first thing I noticed was that mostly everyone in the airport was really good about standing to one side of the moving belt so that others could walk by. Everything related to travel is a bit backwards here; since they drive on the left side of the road, the left lane is the slow lane and the right lanes are used for passing. Took me a little bit of time to adjust to walking on the left side of the staircases and hallways to let people pass on the right.

I made it to my connecting flight's terminal with about 15 minutes to spare. I thought the whole touch screen display thing was only for international flights, but it was on the domestic flight as well. In fact, there was a ton of space on that plane. Honestly coach on that plane was totally comparable to first class on American planes. Extreme swank.

I landed and picked up my baggage, met the driver who was waiting outside of baggage claim, and was driven to my new home for the next six months. Later today I'll post a video showing what it's like. It's set up for two people, but I have it all to myself. Can anyone say, "bwahahahaha"?

Maybe it was the sleep deprevation-induced delirium, but watching the traffic outside made me feel like I was on the planet Pandora. Bright colors everywhere, lights flashing on the road and on the signs and on the trucks and buildings, and all the speed limit signs that I saw were all digital, which I thought was fantastic. I would have tried to have a conversation with the driver but at that point my brain had ceased to function, so I just sat reading the information packet that Yamasa sent with him. Luckily, it included a map, which is going to be extremely useful today.

Today

The view outside my apartment window. Quaint!

So what's the plan today? First, I'll have to unpack my suitcases and bags. Lots of storage space in this apartment (again, it's designed for two people) so that won't be an issue. Again, it's just all about not making a ton of noise when people are trying to sleep. I guess I'll start doing that stuff at 7 or so. After that's done, I'll go out and see if I can find a bank, since I have some American cash that seems to be silently begging me to be exchanged for currency that can actually be used to purchase stuff in this country. Then I guess I'll try to find a convenience store of some kind so that I can buy some of the things I forgot to bring. Most importantly, shampoo.

Also, I have no idea what restaurants are good around here so I guess I'll have to choose one at random.

Not encouraging, Japan.

I'm watching the morning news and apparently it's supposed to rain today, which is not ideal. Oh well, though. I have a jacket.

Then, the last thing I have planned for the day is my placement test for my Yamasa classes, which takes place at 13:00 (I'm trying to get used to 24-hour time, the metric system, and degrees Celsius since that's what they use over here). I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to find the campus. From this map, it looks like it's going to be a 15- or 20-minute walk to and from class each day, which is totally reasonable. Then again, I could be completely wrong about that.

In any case, I'm going to go ahead and post this. Later today, if I find myself at the apartment with some downtime, I'll make a little video of my apartment and whatnot.

But as for now, the adventure begins!