Hello again, fellow travelers!
I'm happy to report that my flight across the biggest ocean on earth went just fine. Aside from being extremely exhausted by the time my plane landed in Tokyo on Monday afternoon, I was feeling really excited to finally be in Japan (and more than a little relieved to finally be off of the plane). Getting through customs turned out to be mostly really simple (the forms distributed on the plane were pretty self-explanatory). The only issue I had getting into the country was one simple mishap which turned out to actually not be a mishap at all.
You see, at no point did anyone tell me that upon arrival in Japan, I would be given an official residence card. So when I gave my passport and visa to the customs guy and was asked if I had a "name card," my immediate internal reaction was to panic that my name on my passport was wrong somehow. I showed him my US learners' permit, (the closest thing I had to a "name card"), but of course, that didn't do anything for me. He passed me off from one customs person to another, about five different people in a row, and thanks to my panic, my grasp of the Japanese language essentially went completely out the window. Thus, I had no idea what anyone was talking about. I ended up being directed by a rather stern-looking gentleman into a small waiting room with an angry-looking yellow sign on the wall that said "MOBILE PHONE USE IS NOT ALLOWED IN THIS ROOM" in like twelve different languages.
"I'm screwed," I thought. "I haven't even left the airport yet and I'm already getting deported for who-knows-what reason. Worst of all, I can't even contact the Embassy to beg them to come help my sorry self who doesn't even know what she did wrong."
While I was sitting in the waiting room, the stern-looking gentleman was busy typing into a computer in front of a desk just in front of me. While I wondered to myself how on earth I was going to afford getting on the very next flight back to the States, since that'd probably cost several thousands of dollars, the guy behind the desk suddenly stood up and gave me a big smile.
"Welcome to Japan, Miss Roop," he said as he handed me my freshly-printed Residence Card (think basically the Japanese equivalent of a green card). "We are so glad you are here."
Well, I just about died of relief. Several "arigatou gozaimasu"s later, I was able to continue through customs, pick up my baggage, go through even more customs, and then find myself in the main concourse of Narita International Airport.
With my internal clock set to about 2:00 AM at this point, things were about to get interesting (and possibly catastrophic, depending on how well they decided to unfold).
Task 1: Find and obtain pocket wifi so I could inform my probably-panicking-by-now mother that yes, I survived the flight and landing. I knew I was supposed to find a specific counter to pick up my pocket wifi, but a quick survey of the concourse didn't help my tired brain locate it. So, I resorted to stopping at a counter and asking "QL wa doko desu ka?" Even though I wasn't really able to understand the response, I understood the gestures, and after some more "arigatou"s, I headed off in the right direction and eventually located the counter. None of the people running it spoke English, but I was able (with my little Japanese) to communicate I was there to pick up reserved pocket wifi and receive it. A few minutes later, I was connected to the internet and able to inform people back home that yes, I was indeed still alive.
Task 2: Obtain Japanese cash. I headed over to a money exchange desk, but when I picked up an exchange form to fill out, my mind started to swim and nothing made sense. Alright, so that wasn't going to work. I remembered reading somewhere that there was a 7-Eleven in the airport, so "QL wa doko desu ka?" evolved into "Sebun-Erebun wa doko desu ka?" Soon enough, I was able to locate the 7-Eleven and get some cash out of an ATM. So far, so good.
Task 3: Find the train to my hotel and arrive there without getting irreparably lost. It was going on 3 AM EBST by this point (Elizabeth's Brain Standard Time), and again, when I tried to look at a subway map, my head swam.
Not knowing what else to do, I went up to the ticket counter and asked (probably somewhat helplessly) "Eigo wo hanasemasu ka?"
"Yes," the lady behind the counter answered with a big smile. "How may I help you?"
I know I'm a stupid foreigner and all, since I'm not fluent in Japanese, but I can't tell you how much I appreciate that wonderful lady. I showed her where my hotel was, and she pulled out a map of all the Tokyo lines, circled the station I'd need to transfer at, told me which line to take to get there and which line to switch to, and which stop to get off at. And then, she sold me a ticket covering the transfer, so I was able to get all the way to my hotel without having to stop to buy anymore tickets. I found my way down to the subway lines, got on the right train, got off at the right station, got on the right train again, got off at the right station, and using Apple maps, found my hotel about ten minutes after leaving the station. Check in was quick, and not much time later at all, I was finally able to stop dragging 100 pounds worth of luggage around and flop on the bed to reorganize myself for a few minutes.
After that, I found some water, cleaned up, and forced myself to stay awake a few more hours until it reached about 9 PM local time (which was about 6 AM EBST). After that, I passed out pretty much instantaneously.
I woke up at about 5:30 AM the next morning. After hanging out in my hotel room for awhile and calling my family, I picked up my bento box breakfast from downstairs (it was delicious), and then spent the day exploring the nearby Tokyo Solomachi, eating lunch at the Kirby Cafe, and going up the Tokyo Skytree. You can see a compilation of my adventures that day here. I passed out at about 8 PM that night, and woke up around 4:30 the next morning. After dozing on and off for a few hours, it was time to head to Kansai Gaidai.
And so began the most exhausting day of my trip so far.
Making it to Shinagawa Station (the nearest bullet train station) wasn't hard at all, despite the fact I was dragging around 100 pounds of luggage again. But once I got there, that was when things started getting difficult. First, I tried to go through the wrong ticket gate and had my ticket eaten by the machine. Congrats, doofus, you're officially stuck in Shinagawa Station forever. Thankfully, the station guard helped me get my ticket out and pointed me in the right direction. I ended up on the right floor to buy a shinkansen ticket, but managed to buy a reserved seat on the train without buying a ticket for the train itself. Once that got fixed, I had about fifteen minutes left until my train arrived.
Up to this point, every station I'd been in had had an elevator available to help me lug my bags around. Shinagawa had elevators elsewhere, but to get down to the bullet train platform, there were only escalators.
Now, later on in the day when I encountered places that just had stairs, I would just take one big checked bag down the stairs at a time, making sure to keep them both in full view at all times. But with a down escalator, you can't exactly do that if there's no up escalator right next to it. I was going to have to take both bags down at once.
And a moment after I began to try, it became fairly obvious that either one of my bags was going down, or I was. Rather than sacrifice myself, I ended up dropping the bigger of my two bags. Thank goodness, no one else was on the escalator at the time, but I felt so bad telling the station guard "gomen nasai" and bowing over and over again after he came to fetch my bag after it tumbled.
(Though an interesting side note--for some reason, after my bag started to fall, my instinctive reaction was to cry out "IIE!" instead of "NO!" Funny how quickly the brain changes languages.)
Somehow or other, I made it to the right platform with my bags about five minutes before the train arrived. I started to relax, only to remember about sixty seconds before the train arrived that I was supposed to get into a specific car. A quick look at my ticket told me I needed to find car 5.
I was currently standing at the spot for car 16 or 17, I don't remember which.
Whichever it was, it was nowhere near where I needed to be.
I raced down the platform, but once the train pulled into the station, I didn't want to risk getting left behind. I climbed onto car 9, and about ten seconds later, by the time I made it to car 8, the train took off. I somehow managed to maintain my forward momentum without falling over, and made it to car 5 a minute later.
And then proceeded to sit in the wrong seat.
I managed to get that part fixed a moment later, at least. Sadly, I was in an aisle seat, so I didn't get any pictures of the outside scenery, and wasn't exactly able to see it very well, either.
A couple hours later, I arrived at Kyoto station. I was able to get off the train with no problems or forgotten belongings. Now it was time to find my way to Hirakata. Thankfully, I was able to find a station guard who spoke English, who gave me a Kyoto area subway map and explained which stops I'd need to take to get to Hirakata, just as the lady in Tokyo had. I eventually found the right subway line and ticket machine, and bought a ticket to the transfer station since I'd be switching rail companies.
Once I got to the transfer station, I finally found some well-deserved lunch. By this point, I was about ready to fall over from exhaustion. "Just one more train," I told myself, "and you'll basically be there."
During that last train ride, a kind older lady noticed how tired I was, scooted over in her elder-reserved seating area, and patted the seat next to her, asking me to sit down even though I wasn't the seat's targeted demographic. I thanked her, and when I got off the train a few stops later, she basically told me the Japanese equivalent of "You take care now, dear."
Well, after that, I was indeed in the right city, but still not at Kansai Gaidai. I got a taxi to the main campus with some help from a kind gentleman who spoke very little English but was very eager to help an obviously-lost foreigner.
(During our short conversation, he told me, "I love America! But Japan is very good country." He helped me lug my bags from the wrong floor of the train station (where I was lost) to the taxi area and told the taxi driver to take me to campus. I wish him the best; he was definitely one of my favorite encounters so far.)
Unfortunately, once I got to the campus, it turned out I was in the wrong place. The campus guards gave me directions, but I got confused and ended up going the wrong way. I ran into a couple of exchange students, though, who pointed me in the right direction.
And so began my mile-and-a-half trek to the right dorms, dragging my bags behind me all the way. I thought about calling a taxi again, but quickly realized it'd be silly to spend money on a taxi when I was so close. I could have taken a bus, but I knew nothing about the local buses at this point and knew it'd be hard to navigate them with all of my luggage.
Finally, I arrived at the right dorm. After checking in and meeting my roommate, I got a little settled in, but then unrolled my futon and basically just passed out at 8 PM. I didn't even eat dinner; I was so tired.
Unfortunately, this meant when I woke up the next morning, I was super hungry and had nothing to eat. Thankfully, figuring out the buses wasn't hard at all, and I was able to find a 7-Eleven near campus to buy lunch at. (I highly recommend all of the different kinds of sandwiches you can get at 7-Eleven here in Japan; they're delicious.)
The past couple of days have mainly just involved doing orientation-type stuff at Kansai Gaidai. A large group of us foreign exchange students suffered through opening a local bank account (mainly a hassle because we all had to write in a very specific way, and if you messed up the style of even a single letter or number on a form, you had to completely start it over. By the end, those of us still struggling through (including me, who apparently cannot correctly write the number "8" to save her life) had started jokingly calling the experience "purgatory" and "eternal damnation.")
Following a Japanese placement test, I got put into a Level 2 class. I had hoped to do a little better than that, but oh well. Tomorrow afternoon, I meet and move in with my homestay family (who apparently have two young daughters around the age of my little sister back home, and live only about 25 minutes away from campus by bus). Classes start next Friday, and assuming I get the classes I want, I'll only have one 9:00 AM class all week; all the rest of my classes will start at 10:45 AM or later.
Well, that's a summary of what's been happening to me so far. I'm mainly just relieved I haven't gotten seriously lost yet or gotten on a wrong train at any point. Overall, Japan is even better than I'd ever imagined. And I don't know why it is, whether that I've studied the country so thoroughly in the past or what, but while some things have been surprising me (such as the 5 PM Chime, a phenomenon I have yet to get a decent video of but absolutely adore), I haven't really encountered any major culture shock yet. All of the food, while different, is delicious. Futon are surprisingly comfortable and sleep-on-able. If anything, the only thing I haven't really enjoyed so far is how cold all the buildings are. Central heating doesn't exist here; individual rooms have smaller heating/cooling units, but they're not terribly effective. Futons are warm, though, which means that I spend a lot of my free time in the dorm hiding under the heavy blankets (like I'm doing right this second, actually).
I've been posting lots of photos of my adventures so far to my Facebook story, so if you want to be able to see them, feel free to add me on Facebook! Assuming I actually know/trust you, I'll certainly accept the request.
Well, I've gone on more than long enough. Stay warm, fellow travelers (I've heard a giant snowstorm is about to pummel the Midwest), and I'll be back soon with more tales from afar.
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