Im in JAPAN

I arrived in Japan yesterday night ( 7/2) at the Narita Airport. Everything went alright. I sat next to a japanese couple ( mid 30's) and basically slept for the majority of the time. I'm suprised I slept so much considering I was determined to watch all the movies I havent seen. I even slept through the takeoff. The food on singapore airline was pretty good. They even had snacks and offered snicker bars, chips, and apples. Oh and their dessert was Ben and jerry's ice cream. I was suprised the flight attendant asked me if i wanted what kind of juice in Japanese. I replied in Japanese. Oranji - juisu ! I like it when people ask me stuff in Japanese so I can use my Japanese skills. Im dissappointed though because I always end up freezing up and resorting to English. Sometimes I try to spit out some words in Japanese to ask something. Like when I was at the aiport terminal. I tried asking for a certain stop : Busu stoppu juuroku wa doko desu ka? Doko desu ka is my favorite phrase. and Sumimasen. ( excuse me) I just decided that I will only use Japanese from now on. Unless they approach me with English/ Chinese. Oh did I mention that the Japanese have a very strong English accent. I couldnt even understand the delivery service person when he asked me if I had any fragile stuff in my luggage. I was like huh? and he had to point to a fragile sign so I can understand.





The hotel that I stayed in the first night isnt bad at all. Man I feel large in their room because its enough space for like a full size bed with a desk and tv. Oh the bathroom is small I finally feel tall for once. Almost feel like a giant. So I was watching the Japanese tv programs to see if I can understand anything. It was unsucessful. It makes me sad that My japanese is not good enough to communicate or understand the tv programs. Even like white people have better Japanese skills than I do.

So today I woke up at 4 am because I was afraid i will miss my shuttle to the airport. But ended up knocking out every so often. I bought my subway ticket all by myself and took the right railway. ( i am extremely proud of myself since I was staring at the Subway routes for liike 5 minutes. So i decided to be cheap and not spend 20 bucks on the skyliner railway and ended up taking the commuter express one which was 10 bucks cheaper. Bad mistake. I was fine for awhile but then i didnt transfer to another railway. I was soo sure I didnt need to transfer since I was staring at the railway map. So i got off the wrong station and ended up pointing to where I need to go and an Old man helped me get to the right station. Man, hand signals saves my ass when I dont understand. He even told the ticket person so they could charge me the right amount and all.

So i got to my mom's friend place at 11 am and I left at 8 am. Its pretty far away from the airport. it takes about an 70 mins to get to one point and then transfer to another train. and then another since i got off the wrong station. So i met my mom's friends daughter ( linda) for like the first time in like 10 yrs or something. This is probabaly the first time I recognize her. So i was at the station trying to see which one is her. And she was sort of doing the same since this is basically our first time meeting bcuz i dont really remember her from 10 yrs ago. I will post pics later since i need my cord. Its in my suitcase that I delivered to the school. 40 bucks to deliver two suitcases!






So I explored from noon to 4 ish just walking around the place called akabane.

My feet started feeling tired so I just sat and ate ramen and read some stuff. Came back took a much needed shower. Then talked to Linda when she came back from fashion school. Then we went to a traditional small "pub" where you can talk to the owner and all. MAn i forgot to take a pic of it. AHHH . its okay Ill just have to go back again one day. So we spent like 4 hrs there talking to the owner and owners wife. In mandarin because the owner's wife is from Taiwan and speaks mandarin and Japanese. It was yesterday that it hit me I will bein Japan for a whole year. While she was talking to me it felt like I new her before or something. It wasnt like a simple how are you conversation but more personal level.