Arrival + First Few Days

Started this blog as a way to keep track of what goes on in Japan. Sorry it’s long. It’s for those of you who are interested. If you’re not. Fuck off. I’ll try to add something everyday or so. Internet’s all over the place.




Japan’s not bad, I guess. It’s a little chilly, like 50-60, but it’s all good I have my sweaters and whatever to keep my warm. The bus-ride to the hotel from the airport was an hour long. Sucked ass if you ask me. I had to take a taxi ride from one hotel to another. Thank goodness I still know some Japanese. The driver spoke no English. In fact, half the people around here speak little or no English. My hosts do though :).

I stayed in a tiny ass hotel room for the night. Because of the jetlag I couldn’t sleep all night. I was also anxious to meet the other people. In the morning we went to orientation at the university. Doesn’t look too bad and it’s a block down from one of the shopping districts. Dunno what I’d be shopping for though. Some nice little food places around here. There’s also an Indo restaurant right down the street. Hell yeah I’m gonna go in and scare the shit out of the Indonesians who work there.





View from the Hotel.

I spent the afternoon chilling with this dude from Grinnell. He’s from Des Moines. Iowa pride. Had a connection right away. Also chilled with some guys from Minnesota. We got a little Midwest club going here.

Then we met our families.

The daughter in my host family came to greet me. It was pretty hardcore. She speaks very little English. But we communicated for a little bit. Went to the train station to get on the trains. Switched trains once, then one more time. Turns out I live about an hour away BY TRAIN from the university. Goodbye sleeping in. I could sleep on the train like ¾ of the people do. But I’m scared I’ll miss the station. I have 2 train changes along the way. Actually what I am thinking about doing is once I start school, to leave early (beat the rush hour) and hang out in the computer lab to come online. We still can’t use the labs because we don’t have IDs.

The train ride was a smack in the face from reality. For almost the whole hour you look outside and there’s buildings as far as you can see. It’s like the horizon packed up and left. I’ll make a video someday and post it. And at every station there are hundreds of people milling around. Downtown it’s even worse. And I can’t wait to experience rush hour (yeah right).

Anyway after the train ride, I got to the station and the host mom picked me up in the car. We get home to this nice little house. Turns out they have a golden retriever. It’s pretty cute. Its name is Tora. So after I met the dog and was almost humped, I actually went inside. After a small tour they showed me my room. It’s on the 2nd floor. I got the whole 2nd floor to myself. Not that there’s anything special up here, but it’s pretty cool. So I had a glass of water and passed out.


My room.

So yesterday morning I got up at 7 am. Unpacked my hand luggage. Chilled. Listened to music. Then I went downstairs to check whats going on. There’s nobody here. No clue where everyone is. But my suitcases were here. So I dragged those mofos upstairs and unpacked them. Organized myself really well surprisingly. There’s a lot that I can do when I have nothing else to do.

So it’s 11 am on Saturday and I don’t really have too much to do. I might read some books. If I find out where the hell the family is I might go and explore the little town that I’m in. See where all the convenience stores are, where the beer vending machines are. You know, that kinda stuff.

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It’s like 1 pm now. Talked to the dad. He made me breakfast which was cool. Well the mom’s somewhere and the dad went to walk the dog. So I’m chilling with the kids. Fumio is 15 and he loves video games. Sakurako is 16 and she’s the one who picked me up. So we’ve been playing winning eleven most of the morning. Wow. I am gonna fit in with this family. Waking up at noon on weekends. Winning Eleven. I’m gonna go to the electronics district to get something for my PS2, maybe a used TV for my room. I’ll see how much it costs. I’ll be getting a cellphone sometime in the next 2 weeks as well. Cellphones here are beyond sexy. They have TV and shit in them. And I get to keep mine too.

I went to try and get one today actually. Apparently there’s 50% discounts for college students, but I don’t have my college ID card yet. And I lost the document that shows I’m a college student. Wonderful. You can apply the discount later. But hell if my Japanese is good enough to ask that. I might try again in another district in town over the next few days.

Dinner was good. The father cooked up a storm for like 3 hours. Have to say that my mouth watered for the whole 3 hours. He made amazing chicken karage, fried chicken and chicken with cashews which rocked. There were also Chinese dumplings, which I didn’t like and a plate of the most random seafood, which I didn’t even touch. I’m not ready yet to try octopus and all that other crap. But I will eventually. Liking sushi is my goal at the end of this trip.

Passed out again at like 8 pm. At least I’m slowly getting adjusted. And I’m waking up at like 6-7, which’ll be the case most of the semester (Lord help me!).