Sutorenjaa In Japan

The Departure

(small note... please email me and I can send you the word doc with all the pictures I am referring to here... haven't figured out how to add multiple pictures yet)
This is It! (The Departure and the Arival)
I’m finally here in Japan! I have so much to catch up on this blog… I’ll have to make a few entries to give the full update… hmmmm…. But I am sure that it will be absolutely riveting information that ALL will want to know and hear so, here goes!
I left on Saturday morning at 12:55pm from LAX. There were so many people from SoCal/ AZ, that I think we had the whole back half of the plane!
It was a non-stop flight to Narita so, all in all I think it took about 10-12 hours? I forget but that’s not really any important info (unless anyone is thinking of visiting, in which case don’t be scared away… it didn’t feel that long). I sat next to two very nice JETs, one who was even going to the same prefecture as me! Joy of joys, there are others!
As for the flight, it was fantastic. There was hardly any turbulence the entire way and the food was actually decent. I just have to say that ANA airplanes are the BEST I have flown on in a long while. I thought that I had enough space but the really great part was that there were little individual TV screens in front of us! So, you could choose what movie you wanted to watch (I saw Robots and Meet the Fockers but they also had Million Dollar Baby, Miss Congeniality 2 and some other French movie as well as a Japanese news program and some Pingu cartoons). The other really cool thing was that there was a game mode so I also played Super Mario 1/2/3, Street Fighter and Punch Out. I think I only slept for an hour the entire way!

The last hour of the flight was pretty crazy because I was really excited to finally get there. The last hour of any flight is always the most exciting since you’re finally getting to your destination. But wow. After we got off the plane everything almost seems like such a blur. Things happened so fast. Basically we got off and had to go through immigration (not a big deal) … haha but check out this sign! Its either really funny or I’m just too immature! It took a while for us to figure what was wrong with the first person and the second seems to have something growing out of his chest!!! Quickly! To the Priority Lane! One other thing was that people had so much stuff!!! I only had 2 big suitcases and a carry on bag (the inflamous big G pink bag! Haaaay!) but others had a roller carry on and then a bag on top of that! Yay me, for packing light. After collecting our bags from the baggage area we were guided by JETs in orange shirts (yes, insert oompa loompah joke here but in this airport they were the signal of order in a mass of confusion and Japanese). They landed us on some busses that took us to our hotel in Tokyo. It was a couple of hours but it was really cool to get the first glimpses of our new home. The vegetation reminded me a bit of Hong Kong but the cars reminded me exactly were I was (some were so tiny!!!). We also passed Disneyland Tokyo.
Well, I think that’s about all I can squeeze onto this entry… but part II to come! Hotels, lights, people and watermelon…TOKYO!!!

posted by KidBach @ 1:40 PM