Again I woke up before our alarm phone1 went off. I got up, dressed and enjoyed a breakfast of mizo soup and rice cakes with some strong Japanese coffee. I love the soup, the rice is okay but I’ve gotten used to it.
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Tag: Japan
It was obvious that I hadn’t adjusted to Tokyo time yet, because while I didn’t have to be up and ready to go to class until 9:45am; I was awake by 5:30. My room-mate (L) and I got up and went out for a look around. Being really early, there weren’t many people around yet, but a few business-men and office-ladies were hurrying off to work. I think it was when we were about a block away from the hotel when it really hit me that I was in a foreign country. Something about there only being one another white guy around and no English to be heard or seen anywhere around. It was just a small but impressive moment for me.
Anyway, L wanted to find the McDonald’s; so we wandered around for a while and found the train station & a KFC but not the McDonald’s. We headed back to the hotel because the heat was starting to get to us and now the hotel’s cafe was serving the free breakfast. We ate and then AWelkin-sensai, A & Bryon came in for breakfast. After we all finished eating AWelkin-sensai took us out to show us around the area a bit and help L find the McDonald’s. She also pointed out some banks for us (useful for exchanging traveler’s checks) and showed us the interior of the train station.
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My study group all made it to Japan safe & sound. We did nearly lose some people along various stages of the way here, but in the end we arrived with our lives and health in tact. I don’t know these people well enough to say whether or not their sanity is in tact after the trip or if they’re always this crazy.
As this was the first time in my memory that I’ve flown; I think I should make a note of the following:
- Flying is not as bad an experience as I had been fearing it might be.
- Puddle-jumper planes suck for people over 5 foot 8 inches, due to low ceilings and no headroom when going down the aisle.
- International flights are too damn long and my ears are still somewhat numb from the constant roar of the engines.
- Turbulance sucks! Particularly when you’re watching the wing bounce.
- Landings are not evil, but only because that means you can get off the plane soon.
The lack of updates recently is because I’ve been in the final preperations for my trip to Japan. We leave tomorrow morning and have to be at the airport prior to the “buttcrack of dawn”. I know that the main hotel we’re staying at has some sort of Internet acccess but I don’t know if I’ll have time to post anything. If I don’t; I’ll see you all in 2 weeks.
As briefly mentioned in various posts on this blog, I’ll be heading to Japan for a vacation/class. The current count is 9 days until takeoff. I’ve got all the omiyage that I’m going to take with me. I’ve got plenty of clothes1. I’ve got my luggage. I’ve started planning how I’ll be packing for the trip and what all I want to take with me besides clothes (e.g. camera, sketchpad, sanity). I am getting very excited about this trip, but it still feels somewhat unreal to me.
In part because I still don’t believe I’ve got enough money to do this2 and in part because I’ve not been on an airplane since I was two. I don’t remember that flight but my Mom tells me that I handled it fairly well. The flight is one part of the trip that I’m not all that happy about as it’s fourteen hours in coach and while my legs do fold up; I’m pretty sure it’s going to be miserable for me. Of course, the worse part of the flight for me is that I’ve enjoyed watching too many disaster movies where planes have exploded, crashed, been ripped to shreds or something equally nasty happened to the passengers. It didn’t really help that I caught the episode of Mythbusters3 where they “fire a bullet into the shell of an aircraft to find out if a single shot can cause explosive decompression — and total aircraft destruction.”4 Eep!
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