So I am finally in Japan!!! The whole trip starting at the airport in Toronto all the way to Ken’s house took a full 21 hours… with no sleep!
I’ll start with the plan ride. I arrived a few hours early for my plane and I had a chance to hang out at the airport, buy some Tim Hortons and muffins and walk around before my 13 hour plane ride. I made friends with a really nice girl named Mikaela who was going to Japan for a 2 week vacation. But the most exciting part of my plane ride was that the Brazilian Olympic team was on my plane!! The athletes were unfortunately all seated in first class (which was about 5 rows in front of me) but their coaches were scattered around the whole plane! I couldn’t understand what they were saying though, as they were all talking in Portuguese.
The plane ride wasn’t as bad as I had imagined. Each person had their own TV with a touch screen on the back of the seat in front of them. We could use the menu to pick out TV shows, movies, games, music etc. I watched 4 movies: Fools Gold, Vantage Point, 21 and Stop-Loss. After my movies I listened to a bit of Japanese on my iPod. I also tried sleeping, but the seats were so small, and I couldn’t stretch my legs so I was pretty uncomfortable. I didn’t sleep a single minute!
When I arrived in Tokyo I had to go through customs. I’ve never seen security like this: they copied our passports, took our photo AND took fingerprints of each person arriving in the country! Ken had given me very detailed directions for how to get from the airport to his town. They included 3 train rides, and then a phone call to him which would decide if I would a) be picked up by him or b) have to take a taxi and then walk.
The first train took me from the airport right into Tokyo (about an hour). Once in Tokyo I had to find another train to take me to Shizuoka City. There are two types of trains in Japan: the fast ones (shinkansen) and the slow ones (normal train). By shinkansen the ride would be 1 hour (but more expensive), and by normal train it would be 3. I picked the fast train. Once in Shizuoka City I needed to catch another train to take me to Shimizu-ku. I did all this with two heavy carry-on bags, a purse and a very large overweight luggage!
I finally arrived in Shimizu-ku absolutely exhausted and I needed to call Ken. Unfortunately all the payphones at the train station were in Japanese, with not a single word of English on them. After struggling with the phones for a few minutes a very nice Japanese lady came over to try to help me. She also couldn’t get the phones working so she used her cell phone to call Ken for me. She was very worried about me and invited me back to her house so I could rest and eat. She told me I looked so tired and hungry!! I thanked her graciously and convinced her that I would be fine and that Ken would arrive soon, which he did!
He came to pick me up with his friend Steph, who is also from Toronto visiting him. He didn’t have access to his car though, so we walked about 20 minutes with the luggages to get to his house!! At that point I was so exhausted that I didn’t feel tired anymore. It was about 8:30pm (Japan time, which would have been 7:30am Canada time) and I hadn’t eaten since our last meal on the plane (around 11am), so we all went out for dinner at (don’t laugh) an Italian restaurant!! It was the closest, cheapest place to his house.
So right now it’s the morning of August 2nd. I slept through the night, but woke up at 6am. Everyone is still sleeping here. Tonight we’re taking part in a dance festival going on in town. Apparently we’re dancing and I have to learn the dance before tonight! Tomorrow night we’re going to another festival where there will be fireworks. On Monday Ken’s other friend is coming, she’s from the Netherlands I think. She’ll be joining us for all our travels around the country!
I really love it here so far!! It’s so different to look around and see nothing you understand!! Not many people speak English and not many signs are in English either. On all the trains I went on yesterday to get here I was basically the only foreigner! It’s crazy, because they watch you…..! Last night at dinner these Japanese kids were so excited to see a group of foreigners that they were waving, smiling, and pointing at us!!
Anyway that’s about all for now, I’ll write another update soon :) Take care everyone! I miss you all!!
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