Emergent Future

Traveling to Japan - the Great Journey

Saturday, 25 August 2007

Detailed below is what I ended up jotting down in my journal during my trip to Japan until now. It's been an... interesting experience to be sure, involving an awful lot of sleep deprivation, lots of flight time, until now where I've been able to finally settle down with the host family I'm staying with.

Curious about the trip? Well, read on.

Ah, the actual day that I leave. Which, I've actually already done as I'm currently typing this up in the Chicago airport while I wait for my flight. Regretfully, said flight is a good six hours from now and the gate that its at doesn't show up on departure schedules yet. This isn't a big deal, however, what with finding this handy computer station that lets me plug my laptop into. Now, if the wireless would just work without me requiring to pay anything...

So, I'm off already. I'm also very tired. My ingenious plot to get myself up early backfired. I had stayed up rather late the night before and woke up early, thus ensuring my tiredness. However, when attempting to sleep last night, I still failed miserably at it, getting no more than a half an hour tops. Yet, this is an exciting enough trip that I'm sure I can last until my flight. After that point... hey, who cares? I'll be in the air for 13 or so hours.

In the meantime, I'm just trying to figure out something to do to kill the time. I have the computer, of course, but there's limited entertainment that can be derived from it while I lack the internet. Perhaps in a few hours or so I can grab a meal anyhow. Luckily for now, I have this interesting book to read as well...

* * *

... And that was an interesting day at the airport. I explored around, figuring that as better than just sitting around for six hours, and it was enjoyable. The only problem was when a Tokyo Narita flight popped up onto the screen saying that it was in the M Concourse... which was in another terminal. This led to some running around, having to leave a security area, only to find that, apparently, it was a mistake and the flight was leaving from gate K12 – in the terminal I was in originally. But, hey, it killed some time.

Currently, I'm not high above Alaska on what is already the longest flight I've ever been on, and it's only about half over. Still, it's been an enjoyable flight so far. I've been able to get a few hours of sleep, got some reading done, music listened to, some TV watched, and I've been hearing Japanese spoken all around which has been great since I'm trying to learn the language.

* * *

Man, that was one long flight. Well, technically now it's the 24th, but I haven't slept in... a long time, heh. I'm currently sitting in the Haneda Airport in Tokyo after taking a bus here from Narita. It was nice and fast and I was able to get here with an easy 4 hours to spare with no problem at all. Regretfully, that has also meant I've had little to do during this time and the lack of sleep over the last several days is catching up to me in a major way. While I will be off to the hotel once I touch down in Osaka, its getting hard to keep myself conscious, and I don't particularly want to miss my flight. Hence I busy myself!

On, just as an amusing note... Security and customs checks here? Massively easily. Security is so, so much more lenient than the United States and customs? They didn't even look at my bags. I was surprised.

Now, off to play solitare. I played 40 games on the plane earlier and lost every last one of them. Lets see if I can break the record.

* * *

Oh, that solitare game... beat the first one I tried Go figure.

Anyway, no I'm currently sitting in my hotel in Osaka, safe and sound and done traveling, save for heading to the 'meeting point' tomorrow, but that hardly counts. I just need to get up, find someone from USAC (the study abroad group) or the college, then they handle the rest.

Over all, it as a long trip. It wasn't that exciting either, but it as fairly pleasant over all, save the massive, massive sleep deprivation anyhow. Its strange being here... not in a 'culture-shock' way, but rather in that it doesn't feel all that different. I noticed a few different things here and there as to how things run of course, but it felt more 'right' than strange. And, to me, that's slightly odd as I wasn't expecting to feel so comfortable almost immediately - more so in a country that I can barely speak the language of and I stand out like a sore thumb in.

But, now I must sleep. Thank goodness.

* * *

The chronicle is now complete. I've arrived at my destination with my host family and I'm now, more or less, settled in. Yay! They're good people and I'm pretty happy so far.
Tags: japan flight travel study abroad

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