From Harlem to Japan

So, I've been frightfully neglectful of my blog WHERE IT COUNTS. I am IN JAPAN and yeah... that was the whole point, wasn't it?


Anyway, I'm gonna try to break this up into a few sections so they are easier to read, because I hate long streams of consciousness with no organization (i.e. most other blogs that show up in my searches). I want to have an informative blog so that if you guys want to go to Japan (specifically Kansai Gaidai) maybe I can help you out in places where I was very lost.


The Flight
So, 14 hrs seems really long and daunting, but it really isn't all that bad. Especially if you fly on the airline Renelle and I flew, which was ANA airlines. We didn't even know that we scheduled a flight with ANA through American Airlines, but we lucked out and got pretty sweet deals. I mean first class would have been nice.

Um, yeah. I'm not even messing around. First class you can actually SLEEP on this flight. (obviously I don't know about other first classes, but even economy seating is freaking high tech) It was pretty sweet. Ms. Renelle was asked if she wanted to change her seats, and for some reason she said no... There is still some bad blood between us for that one! :P


Economy seating was really cool. I paid about $1400 for round trip, so i would hope so! Actually being in the ANA terminal already made you feel like you were in Japan. People were speaking in Japanese before you even got on the plane. And ON the plane the flight attendants did NOT really speak English. It was very difficult for them to understand you, but they were very attentive none the less. We had this awesome tv and free headphones (which i thought they stopped doing). You can check the services here. They had awesome games A LOT of movies ( I saw slumdog millionaire! It was beautiful) and your menu on there. There was free alcohol, which isn't the best decision while you fly (nausea), but we went for it anyway. Being the drinking age is sweet. :)

They also gave us food, which i wasn't too excited about Renelle loved it, but it was just ok.

In Tokyo -> Connecting flight

When we got to Tokyo (which is where our connecting flight was) we just kind of followed the throng of Japanese people getting off the craft. On the flight they gave us these two forms that were in Japanese that we needed to fill out to get through customs. When we got to customs we filled these things out and gave them to the tellers. The tellers took out CoE's :( and the I think they gave us a sticker, but it doesn't matter. lol Well it does, its really important, but who cares. Remind me to put the video of us landing later? Okthanks. ;)

Anyway, sucky for us we have to pick up our luggage and RE CHECK IT IN. Wack, but at the luggage carousel we found Corey!

This is Corey holding her first can of her beloved grapefruit chuhai. The beginning of the end. :P

We got REAL food here. Most of which i could stomach, however i was still nauseaous from the flight.

In Narita Airport (NRT), Osaka

Instead of being intelligent people and exchanging our gobs of cash in Tokyo (which i knew had banks out the wazoo). We waited until we got ALL THE WAY TO OSAKA and realized that NRT airport did NOT have currency exchange. And after we got our bags (met Matthew) and found our pick up service (whom we had to pay $25 to) we were instructed to (quickly) buy groceries to sustain us for the night, because places in the area were to be closed. It was not very pleasant. So, Renelle being the trooper that she was, ellected to be my ATM as i had loads of money in Cash and Money Orders (and dollars are not accepted really anywhere in Japan. You need Yen). Good job Renelle! :)

So we bought some TakoYaki and fried rice. (not my picture)

Yum. It satisfied us for the night.

Seminar house ho!

Then we took all of our crap and loaded it into the bus. We met around 15 people (but the cool kids sat in the back aka us). It took us about 30mins to drive to the dorms... Which are pretty freaking sweet. We zoomed by tons of Love Hotels and everything was in Japanese. But we still didn't feel like we were in Japan. I still don't really feel this way. It feels like I'm stuck in Little Japan in NYC. We get to our "neighborhood",registered in seminar 2 (others in seminar 4), and then we went to our rooms.

There I met Helen. :)

She's a really cool girl and she was just willing to hang out with me, even though she just met me. Love Helen! Our phones didn't work in Japan, and neither did our internet (if i remember correctly). The first night was quite miserable. We had a curfew (10 or 11 pm I cant rememeber). So I couldn't visit any of my friends (Both Matthew and Helen lived in Seminar house 4), but Corey lived in Seminar 3 (where I lived!) so Helen adn I went to go find her,because we were sort of miserable and bored.

We met a few people awkwardly, and that was that. I spent my night wondering why i was in Japan and crying off and on. The time difference and the jet lag was EXCRUCIATINGLY depressing. I heard that some guy from my school couldn't take it and flew back to NY like the next day or two.

What a NOOB because it got WAY better after that one painfully depressing no phone or facebook in my room having night.

But here I am today! Happy as a Clam! More information in later posts... I think this one is long enough, ne? :*