I'm in Japan! Watashi ha Nihon de Imasu!

It's been an eventful twenty-four hour period. I made it all the way to the airport yesterday without incident, thanks to my wonderful godfamily, who stuck with me all the way until TSA prevented them from accompanying me any further. The security check was surprisingly quick (I never stopped moving, except for when I had to pause to let the man check my passport and ticket), and I was quickly through to my gate.

There was a surprising amount of Vietnamese people on the flight. They surrounded me on all sides when I was sitting, and—as Vietnamese are wont to do—started talking to each other, learning about each other, very loudly. This is probably because D.C. to Tokyo is what I believe to be a common leg of a trip between the U.S. and Vietnam. In fact, on the plane, I ended up sitting next to a nice Vietnamese woman and her son, who were on their way to Vietnam to visit her father, who had just suffered a stroke. Her son is adorable, and was very technologically advanced at the age of four. He spoke better English than Vietnamese eve, and he spoke very much throughout all of the fourteen hours of flight time, seeming to be excited about anything and everything.

I watched two movies during the flight: Dark Shadows and Chicago, both of which I've been meaning to see for some time. The rest of the trip was like any other plane flight: sleep, drink, eat, bathroom, games on the personal monitor, sleep, etc.

Upon landing, I made my way through customs and immigration with no hassle whatsoever, and surprisingly quickly. My bags somehow always manage to come out among the first at the baggage claim, so I luckily could also collect those quickly as well. Coming out to the meeting area was like opening your door to see a mob of silent picketers in front of your house. So many of them! But CIEE staff were wearing egg yolk colored shirts which were hard to miss.

It turns out that Mary, the other girl in the program, is going through a different program instead, so it's just me and the boys now. We took an hour and a half long bus ride to reach the main Tokyo area from the airport, passing Tokyo Disney along the way and the lighted ferris wheel beside it. Apparently, Japan has a thing for ferris wheels, and there's actually a ferris wheel on top of a department store somewhere in Osaka. I'll be sure to find it if I ever make a trip out there.

Tomorrow is a jam packed day, and I'm beat. Gotta to go bed now to wake up early for breakfast tomorrow at 7:00 (which shouldn't be a problem considering my jetlag).

Mata ne!

Maggie

PICTURES!

It took me a while to understand what
this door message was saying...

They have a toilet flush sound button?
Whatever would you use that for? o.o

My cozy room in the hotel. I'm standing
right at the door, and this is all there is.

Another view of my adorable hotel room.

The train station near my hotel, aptly named
Kichijoji Station.

The well lit street outside of the Inn.

This street is so mini, yet so bright! It's like a
compact little Times Sq. road.

Another brightly lit road. We were on the search for food~

Apprently, the Japanese do indeed celebrate Halloween, and around here, it's serious stuff too.

This is the Korean restaurant we went to for dinner.
It was absolutely delicious! Luckily, CIEE pays for
all the meals had during orientation, so we treated ourselves a little. ;)

This is the outside of our inn. The front desk is actually on the fourth floor.
The first floor has hot coffee vending machines and a breakfast cafe.