I’m finally here, and so far I’ve been having a wonderful time. (Click photos for a bigger version)

I arrived at the airport around 11am for my 2:35pm flight. I got to hang out with my wonderful parents and my wonderful boyfriend for about an hour before going through security. I managed to stay strong up until the point where I kissed and hugged everyone goodbye - then the tears started coming. I smiled passed it, and somehow managed to not cry too much. As Chris described it, the moment was bittersweet.

We made it through security without any issues whatsoever. And we managed to switch seats with people to sit next to each other. Neither of us slept even a second on the entire flight. I watched one Japanese movie and played a lot of Bejeweled and Solitaire. I was thrilled when I was browsing through the “World Music” second and found AKFG’s WORLDWORLDWORLD album as one of the music selections. So I listened to that.

This was the very first sight I saw of Japan. I have to admit, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Haha. I had the stereotype in my head that the land was nothing but concrete and skyscrapers. In fact, it’s not really like that at all. I’ll be adding more pictures and making a video shortly of the area where I’m staying. It’s quite nice. When we got off the plane and through customs - which was also a painless process - we were greeted by two Asia University students.

One of them had stayed at CWU and became friends with Chris while she was over there, so she was the one to help us with everything. Asuka is her name.

The first thing I did was exchange money. Then we took our bags over to a delivery service counter and handed our bags over. Asuka took care of the paperwork for us to make sure it got to the right place. With our carry-on baggage in hand, we headed off to the trains.

I don’t quite recall how long it took on the train to get to Musashino - I think it was about 2 hours. We had to transfer twice after the initial train. We discovered that Chuo line is quite popular and… squishy. Haha. If you have claustrophobia or have issues with people being in your personal bubble, you’ll probably have a lot of problems with that train.

After we got into the city, we got into a taxi and went to the school. We met up with our main contact here, Yukio, and he walked us over to the dorms. I was shown my room briefly and got set up with the entry code/fingerprinting (more on this later), dropped my stuff off, then left. I met Asuka’s and Chris’s friend Megumu, and together we walked over to Chris’s dorm. After he got set up, we walked over to a nice little shopping area to eat Yakiniku.

This is probably going to be my favorite meal style. Nothing but meat meat meat meat meat and more meat!! We got to try tongue for the first time (I’m pretty sure it was cow), which was a bit chewy but very delicious. The way yakiniku works is you get a plate of meat, and in the middle of the table is a sort of cauldron of coals with a grate over it. You put the meat on the grate, let it cook for about 45 seconds to a minute, then put it on your plate and eat away.

I’m really not quite sure what all we had really. I know we had some beef, pork, and chicken. But there might have been other meat on that plate that I didn’t know about. The yummy drink was a cocktail of OJ and mystery yummy alcohol. In any case, it was freakin delicious for my first Japanese meal. By time we had finished eating, or maybe even in the middle of eating, both Chris and I were extremely tired. Afterward, we both went back to our dorms and promptly went to sleep.

Actually, I went to Megumu’s room to email my parents, since I had forgotten to bring an ethernet cord with me. After that, I went to my room and fell asleep around 11:30pm Japan time, or 7am PST (I had been awake nearly 24 hours).

I woke up briefly around 5am, then again at 8:30am. Finally I couldn’t sleep anymore, so I got up. My room was absolutely freezing, both in part because I couldn’t figure out how to work the heater/AC and also because there was a small window thing left open on my sliding door. I got up and sat around, wondering when my luggage would arrive. In the meantime, I started making a list of stuff I needed, unpacked my carry-on stuff, and took a picture of my small room.

I came to the realization somehow that the bags wouldn’t be delivered to the dorm - instead it would be delivered to the international office on campus, since that was the only address we had. I went to Megumu’s room and asked her if she would help me figure out where my bags were going. We walked over to the international office and luckily Yukio was there. He said he would call when they arrived.

At about noon, I got a call from a lady who didn’t speak barely any English, but I somehow was able to understand what she was saying (how awesome is that?). Chris’s and my bags had arrived at the office. I wandered over to the boys dorm and grabbed Chris, and together we got our bags. On our way out of carrying 100+ pounds of luggage each, we ran into an American teacher who had just came to Japan two weeks prior to us. He was there to teach English. He gave us some of his information and offered to be a sort of friend if we needed it, which was really nice. He was also super nice in the way that he helped me carry my bags down a flight of stairs.

After we got back to our dorms, I was able to take a shower and arrange some stuff. Then we met up with Megumu. While we were outside figuring out where we were going to go, we met up with another American girl named Chloe, and one other Japanese girl (I can’t remember her name unfortunately ). Together we walked down to a place called Donki Hote (pronounced Don Quixote. How fucking cool is that?). On the way there, we walked over a natural creek and saw these HUGE koi. They were awesome. I wanted to keep the orange and white one, which we dubbed Frank.

I managed to get an ethernet cord and an extension cord that had three prong sockets (the wall sockets are only two prong). After we shopped and got a bunch of stuff, we dropped off what we had and went over to an awesome Ramen place. I didn’t have ramen - I had gyoza, pork and rice. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me to take a picture of the meal before I ate. But Chris captured me eating some gyoza. We wandered back towards the dorm, where all but Asuka left Chris and me. We wandered around a bit, getting lost trying to find the equivalent of a dollar store (Asuka lives in another area). Eventually we met up with Megumu again and found the store. I bought a bunch of hangers and other misc stuff.

Chris and I were looking at cups and found this AWESOME Engrish cup. “I can hit and run!” We had to explain why it was so funny to Asuka. I also found some finger condoms. Again, unfortunately, I did not have my camera to take a picture. After we were done shopping, we wandered over to AU and sat in their sort of dining room area. Asuka brought us some Takoyaki, Octopus donut-type balls. Chris JUST told me they were octopus - I had no idea when I ate it. Either way, it was very good. Haha. I would have ate more except I was still full from our earlier ramen excursion. We came back just before 6, and I spent an hour trying to organize my clothes and such. The dorm had a meeting for all the new students to the dorm - there are two Korean girls, one girl from Mongolia, and the girl who translated for us is from Malaysia. Quite the diverse group.

In this city, there are very strict recycling laws. Everything must be sorted. I’ll make another post about that in the next few days.

After the meeting, I came back to my room and finished organizing. I got caught up on all my twitter posts, and then decided to write this! Tomorrow we have a meeting to do Alien registration. Once my room is completely decorated, expect pictures! I’ll also be making a video of the area, as well as a post and/or video of the mundane everyday things for my Kevin.

Ja ne!