I rolled the desk over to the window. It's a nice atmosphere but it's cold over there. There is not enough counter space in this room.
Then I brushed my teeth (also AWESOME) and went down for our dorm meeting. We learned all about Ontakesan Dorm, which is a pretty cool place, then we all took a tour of the neighborhood that ended at the train station. Apparently Maria and I accidentally jumped the turnstile on the way, so we messed up our tickets, whoops. It wasn’t so bad, we just had to talk to the train security officer. We got on and went to the city hall so Paul could show us where we can get our Alien Registration card. Then we went back on the train and rode to a stop where we got off and walked to our campus. It’s a bit of a hike, but not too bad. Just a bit confusing.
We got a tour of the campus and then took a break for lunch. Maria and I wandered around with Matt, who also lives in Ontakesan, and we went to a convenience store for a while until the ramen shop opened at 11. I got a grape Fanta at the store, and it was huge! 450 ml! Then we got delicious miso ramen with a bunch of other TUJ students. From there we moseyed into the lecture hall to begin the REAL orientation. Which was LONG. And you don’t want to hear about it. UGH. Suffice to say, we know many things now that are essential to our wellbeing. Oh, but I will say that the student council president is this baller Asian dude who's like, a bro or something, he was totally awesome. During the computer lab part of the orientation, I was able to sneak onto Facebook for a bit and say hello to people.
My adventure starts here:
After waving my parents a teary goodbye at the security gate in BWI, I boarded a plane to San Francisco that would connect to a flight for Narita Airport in Japan. I was seated between two dudes a little older than me, one was reading lines from a play about Oedipus, and I’m assuming he played the Priest, because those lines were highlighted, and the other guy was reading Lewis Black’s new book Me of Little Faith. I couldn’t figure out the headphones, so I didn’t watch the in-flight movie. Cool story, bro.
The dude next to me had a sweet nosebleed a good way into the flight, and I thought the guy across the row from me was dead cause he didn’t move for like 5 whole seconds and he was old, but then he did. Cool. Story. Bro.
I arrived safely in San Fran, where I immediately freaked out trying to find my terminal and went to the wrong one, but it ended up ok, I had about an hour to figure things out, so with my remaining 45 minutes I snagged some BK Lounge and stuffed it in my face like a fat American and then tried to phone my folks, but the phone wouldn’t take my monies. Also SFC doesn’t have free wireless. D<
I got on my flight and was seated next to this adorably sweet old Japanese man and a cute 20-something Japanese girl, but this dude switched places with them so he could sit there with his mom, so I sat next to them. We were a pretty awesome team if I do say so. We all waited until his mom had to go to the bathroom and then we team-rushed it. The guy and his mom were going to Taiwan to visit her sister who was sick. I found out that his mom had been all over the world, Japan, Europe, Australia, the US! And the guy spoke 3 languages because he grew up in Taiwan, moved to Thailand, and then moved to the US. Impressive.
Anyway, on the plane I read some Sherlock Holmes and watched the movies, which were Love Happens, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Four Christmases, and 500 Days of Summer. I must say, Cloudy was BY FAR the best. I didn’t think it was going to be good, so I didn’t go see it in theaters, but it was AWESOME. Everyone go torrent it.
Anyway, I got off that plane after like 4738904 hours (about 9) and said a quick goodbye to dude and his mom and carted myself through customs, which took no time at all. They just looked through my passport and the two papers they asked me to fill out on the plane and sent me on my way. At baggage claim, I finally found Maria, who was indeed on the same flight, but had gotten on late and was on the other side of the plane (Boeing 474s are HUGE).
We got our stuff and met Becky on the way out, who lives in TUJ House, so we got bus tickets with her. At the bus, we met Dan, Betty, and Mike who go here, too. Maria lost her ticket not 5 seconds before we got on the bus, but she got on ok and we rolled out to the Sheraton Miyako Hotel in Tokyo, about an hour and a half drive. As soon as it started getting dark my body was like SLEEP TIME, but luckily Maria was hopped up on excitement and had slept the whole way over, so she was ready to take over. She woke me up when we got to the hotel and from there we stood shivering until a taxi picked us up and took us to our dorm. Hooray! Ontakesan Dorm!
We got there and the dorm manager Aki helped us cart our bags upstairs. The other dorm head, Paul, checked us in and made sure we knew where things were in the dorm before giving us brief directions to the street with the night life (a grocery store, 100 yen store, Mc Donald’s, etc). After unpacking some things, we left in search of food with our new acquaintance Dan. We ended up at Jusco, the grocery store, where I bought a three pack of onigiri and some Peach Tea. I ended up not eating anything when I got back, though, since I was so tired. Wait, I did eat one of the cookies my uncle made and sent with me. It was delicious.
