I wrote a ton of stuff during the 6 days I didn't have internet. I'd get on in my spare time and start writing. So I'm going to divide it into posts by day by setting the time and date myself. Here goes~!
Made it. The following is a long tale of what happened on the flights.
Soo, got to RDU at 4 something am, checked my bags, and was told they’d be sent directly to Fukuoka. That would supposedly dispel my previous worries about having to find them in in Tokyo just to recheck them again. Well, had to part ways with mom and dad right after and head off through security. Made it, and followed a woman who I’d spoken to during to our gates, since she was headed to gate 22 and I needed gate 23. Apparently she’s a UNCG grad student in the nursing program. Well, we parted ways too ‘cause her flight left earlier, and I waited on mine for a good… two hours, maybe? Loaded up. Stuffed oversized bookbag at my feet. Rode off into slowly rising sunset at 6:20am.
Arrived in Dallas about three hours later or so. First began following signs for my terminal, ended up getting on their sky shuttle thing. It took me to the right terminal after several stops elsewhere. A currency exchange was right across from the gate. So I did that and got myself 22,000 yen for my first week here. I think we go to a bank as part of orientation, so sometime between August 23-25 I’ll learn how to withdraw money here. Then I called home and called Deborah and waited around for an hour or two once more before they finally began loading us up. This was the thirteen hour flight. I got on the plane and sat down, and a few minutes later a Japanese stewardess came up and asked if I wouldn’t mind moving ahead just one row/seat. So I did, and I lost my window seat that I’d had reserved since June.
At first I was a little upset. But as the old Japanese man beside me said, we had a lot of leg room, and with no seats in front of ours, whenever I had to get up, I could do so easily without walking over people to get out. They fed us a lot, it felt like. They came by the first time with drinks and a little pack of pretzels and I ate mine slowly so it filled me up. Ten minutes later, they came by with our first lunch or dinner or whatever. Beef and mashed potatoes or chicken and curry rice. I got the chicken, but I couldn’t eat it all. It came with sushi, a roll, and more. I felt bad leaving so much, because the man beside me ate every speck of his meal. Then it was back to shifting around and trying to get comfortable. We had a little TV screen and tray that popped out of our chairs, but I never ended up watching any movies on the TV. I just watched the flight path information, which said how much time we had left until arrival. By the time we reached 6 hours remaining, I thought I was going to die. My legs were jello and I kept getting up to move around but it wasn’t really helpful and it was terrible being stuck there.
At another point they brought out another meal. Or… something. I think next was a ham and cheese sandwich. They’d often come by offering drinks and stuff too. Um, I began talking to the Japanese man beside me after a while. He apparently had been living in Alabama for 18 years, teaching physics there, but is now retired. He’s still heavily accented though, and was returning home to Tokyo for a couple months to, I think he said, prepare for a return home. Let’s see what else… I really can’t sleep on planes, I found. I’d shift around trying to get comfortable, but my back was sore and aching and soon my shoulders were as well. My skin is bruised from carrying around that bookbag so stuffed with stuff. Um, they brought us another meal about an hour or two from landing. Pizza or chicken and rice. I got pizza, and the middle was not that cooked so I ate the crust around it and left the middle sitting there. But this came with fruit, cantaloupe and strawberries, and those were the best things I’d ever tasted.
Oh, you know how RDU said my bags would go straight to Fukuoka? Nope. During takeoff, a stewardess asked me if I was alright, ‘cause I guess I was nervously staring out the window. I ended up asking her about what I do about getting my next boarding pass. I was switching from American to Japan Airlines, so I didn’t have my JAL boarding pass yet. I also asked if she thought my baggage would really go all the way through, because I was given customs forms to fill out and bring through with me. Anyway, she said she’d find out, and with a few hours to go, she came back to find me and said no, my bags did NOT go all the way to Fukuoka. They stopped in Tokyo. So that meant I had to get them, go through customs, find a boarding pass, find the terminal, and get on my next and last flight. Well, maybe I ooze a helpless aura or something, but the Japanese man decided he was going to lead me through the airport. So when we arrived (at 12:30 instead of 1:05, I might add), he took me through the airport. There’re two buildings to terminal 2 of Narita, the satellite building and the one with everything else. We were in the satellite building, so there’s a shuttle that goes between the two and nowhere else. We rode it to the main, he took me to the immigration line, and waited for what felt like forever for me to get through. The line was long, but when I got up I just handed them one of the two forms I’d filled out on the plane. Then I had to place my pointer fingers on a scanner and it took a picture of me too. Then he walked me down to find my bags, which came out as two of the last bags through, and then he walked me down through customs (all I did was give them the other form from the plane, saying I didn’t have anything dangerous and they didn’t even check. I just went on), and then to the baggage check area for Japan Airlines (JAL) which seemed really far away. He kept pointing things out to me, like the information desks we’d pass, so that I could do it alone on the way back. And once I’d checked my bags, I turned to thank him again, and he was mysteriously gone… So I went to find terminal B myself and arrived with little trouble and still an hour left. I just sat there, as I did for every gate. Paranoia kept me from wandering off to buy a drink or anything. Once I found the gate, that’s where I’d stay until they loaded us up. Oh, after getting my boarding pass or one of those things, I had to go back through security. They had the liquids in a bag thing and I had to pull out my laptop, but they didn’t make me pull off any shoes. Once again, I passed through the metal detector with no trouble.
For this plane, they had us go through and check our boarding passes, and then load up on a shuttle that took us out onto the runway. We unloaded from the bus and climbed up a stair ramp to board the plane. I took some pictures of it ‘cause I thought it was neat. All my other planes just had us go through the tunnel to board. Oh! By the way, when I unloaded from the Dallas to Tokyo plane, it was like stepping into an oven. It was so hot in that little tunnel, and again when we boarded the bus and lined up to get onto the plane. But the plane itself wasn’t too bad, and unlike the others, it had music playing overhead. Apparently you could plug in headphones somewhere and pick your own music selection. I think it changed often too, because there was a paper that said Today’s Music Section on it. I didn’t check because I was dead and not intending to do it. The flight was only about two hours or less.
So we headed off. I had another window seat to stare out of, getting my first real glimpses of Japan. Saw a huge baseball field and lots of stuff. Took a couple pictures once I reminded myself I have a camera. The flight was spent looking like I was asleep while wishing I really was. But the thing I noticed was, I was the only student aged person on the flight. There was no one else going to Seinan Gakuin on it. So I unloaded again at 4:45pm Fukuoka time (13 hours added to EST time) and went to get my bags, then slowly headed out into the lobby area, looking around for someone with a sign with my name like the email said.
Instead I hear an “asheri?” out of the corner of my ear and turn to see two girls staring between me and a piece of paper. They had a sheet with all the foreign student’s faces on it. So I went over and she said her name was Eri and she had studied at UNCG. And the other was Naoko. I have both of their email addresses for whenever I get email (should be August 25th, and yes I am typing this up beforehand. I don’t have anything else to do really). So they picked me up and helped me buy a subway ticket. We loaded up and then switched to a taxi, and finally arrived at the school. An RA was there, Shuhei, and he gave me the secret code needed to open the doors to the dorm. I dropped my stuff in the room and… there were only two other people there, two French girls who had both just showered. So instead of bother them to start off, I went with Eri and Naoko to the nearby grocery store, Sunny’s, and got some noodles and a couple drinks because I had no idea what I was doing for dinner. We returned, they left because they’re not I-House residents, but actual Seinan students. Oh! Since I don’t have email for so long, I asked Eri to email my mom. xD She agreed, so hopefully mom got an email last night saying I’d been picked up successfully and was here and safe.
The first night:
After that, the two French girls, Corallie and Linda were in the lobby on our floor, so I dropped my food in my room and talked with them a bit. Then we ran into Momoko who said they were all going out for ramen. So we joined them, and ended up with a group of ten people streaming into this little ramen stand with these business men at the bar all staring at us. To sit, there was either the bar stools or little tables with the straw mats. We sat at the tables and ordered ramen and talked a ton. At my table was Corallie, Christian, and Yuki. Christian kept acting as a translator between us and Yuki because her English wasn’t super great, but later when I talked one on one with her, I was able to get my words across pretty well. She knows of Uchuu Sentai NOIZ and wants to see the picture I have of myself with them. xD
Let’s see… we went back to the dorm after that, and went up to our rooms to put a couple things away and were supposed to meet in ten in the lobby so we could go to the beach. I don’t have a watch or anything so I went right back down really quickly… and everyone had vanished. So I was standing there awkwardly waiting, and around 10 or so a ton of people suddenly came pouring in. They’d all gotten in on a later flight, all ending up together. I jokingly complained about how lonely I was being the only one on mine and exchanged names with too many people to remember. We went for a walk around back to Sunny’s grocery to show them, and I bought a giant bottle of water and everyone followed suit with their own purchases. This bottle is massive. And it was 97 yen. About a dollar. There were tiny little normal bottles for 97 yen. So I couldn’t pass up the huge one. There was also a pack of six of the giants for 499 yen and me and two guys had each gotten one. We discussed all chipping in a little and splitting the pack, but ended up just getting one each for now.
Because of their size and weight, we dropped those off at the dorm, and went to the beach. Though, it was more like standing on a wide sidewalk/strip of concrete at the edge of the sand, under an overhang with benches. I learned a ton of names, and have probably totally switched all the faces they belong to. There were a lot of people there… another Eri, Kisha, Jennifer, Andrey the Russian (from Cyprus), Linda and Corallie and another guy, the French, Jeff and Christian the New Yorkers, and uh… other people. One guy’s from Colorado. I think that was Robin? I’ll get it down eventually.
UM. It was super hot. It’s like a sauna. We were all sweaty and gross and my picture was taken and I know I looked terrible. I would have a copy, but I don't remember who took the picture. But later we walked back to campus, missing the turn a couple times before finally making it back. Then we basically all went to bed because it was 11 and we were all jetlagged still.
Not super happy about the rented futon sheets thing. First off, I don’t even know how to properly apply it. Second, there’s bloodstains on one part and the pillow is a tiny thing stuffed with hard little beads or something. I can’t sleep on that Dx May end up asking if I can return for a refund and by my own. I am grossed out, but I have to sleep. I haven’t in… a very long time.
