JAPAN (Part 2)

After our bus ride from Tokyo Narita Airport to Mito, we were met by some of the other AET's who have been in Mito for a year or more, including my good friends Mason and Carmon Drumm, and several other people I had known at OC. My 'AET Buddies' Josh Huggins, Yukiko Sonoyama, and Daleth Mountjoy took me to dinner at an Italian place at Mito station called "Saizeriya" (Quickly becoming one of my favorite meals), and then dropped me off at my apartment to settle in and get some sleep.

Saturday (The next day), Daleth had us all over to his apartment (The crazy distance of about 20 paces from my front door) for breakfast. He cooked us eggs and toast, and then we talked about plans for the day. Daleth's girlfriend Tiffani was visiting from out of town and has a car, so she drove us to Nitori (Japanese Ikea) to get some things for my apartment. I bought (what I thought was) a fitted sheet, a couple of towels, an end table, and a lamp, and we ran into several of the other new AET's with their buddies picking up apartment furnishings. We took our purchases back to the apartments and then walked down the street to a noodle restaurant for lunch, I had sukiyaki udon, it was delicious. After lunch, I set set up some of my purchases, and found out that my fitted sheet was actually a duvet cover. **Side note: buying stuff in Japan can be pretty confusing, I imagine returning it would be a nightmare, so I kept it and put it over my comforter.**

That evening, Yukiko and Daleth, two of my AET Buddies who also are my next door neighbors had a surprise birthday party to attend. We walked to an Izakaya restaurant about ten minutes away, the food was great, and it turned out the party was for their friend Mac, who is from Loveland, Colorado. Afterwards, we walked back to the apartments and went to sleep.

Sunday, Daleth and I took a bus to Mito Station and then walked to church. I had visited Mito Church of Christ when I was in Ibaraki on study abroad, and it was really cool to be back and join that community in worship; they have a bilingual service which is pretty cool, you can choose to sing in Japanese or English. I usually try to sing in Japanese, I can usually read the words, but have no clue what they mean (I'll probably blog about that later).

After church, Daleth and I went to lunch with some of my OC friends and fellow new AET's Cameron Sutherland, and Taryn Parker. We walked down the Main Street in downtown Mito to a Chinese restaurant about 15 minutes away. Japanese Chinese food is much different than American Chinese food–and probably more like Chinese Chinese food.

After Lunch we all walked back to the station, and then about 15 minutes past it to a park where a bunch of AET's were gathering to play soccer and frisbee for Jordan Powell's birthday (AET, I once took a bible class at OC taught by his dad). It was a lot of fun playing soccer with them and just getting to know some of the AET's and other church members.

After the park, we took a bus back to the Migawa area (This is the name of our neighborhood, and also my main school) and I grabbed a meal from the konbini (Japanese convenience store; these things are everywhere, AND they are awesome) and headed back to my apartment to get to bed early for my first day of training on Monday.

To be continued...

JAPAN

For those of you who don't already know, I moved to Japan in April.

I was offered a job teaching English in the public schools in Mito, Japan back in December, participated in a one-day training seminar in January, sold my car in March, and packed up and got on a plane in the beginning of April. Since then, I've experienced and learned so much already, that it's hard to even begin to sort through it all.

I'm intending to use this blog to chronicle my time in Japan through stories, pictures, and thoughts, so I'll start off with an overview of my arrival in Japan.

Wednesday April 9th, 2014. Windsor, Colorado 4:30 AM, I woke up and got ready to head out to Denver International Airport to catch my 8:10AM flight to LAX. My parents drove me to the airport, I had narrowed down my belongings to fit into a suitcase, a duffel, a carryon, a backpack, and my trumpet case. **Bonus thought: If I can trim the stuff in my life down to such a small amount in order to move to Japan, do I really need all that other stuff I've got? (Yes, Dad, you can throw away all the junk in my room.)** At the airport I was forced to cram my backpack inside my other carryon and rearrange some books in order to avoid having to pay an additional $200 baggage fee for my trumpet. Thankfully the airline clerk was very helpful, and with all of our combined efforts we were able to cram the backpack into my carryon. 

I got checked in and printed my boarding passes and then my parents and I headed towards security, where we hugged goodbye, and huddled up for a prayer. That's one of my favorite things about my family; each time one of us is facing a big life change, heading out on a trip, or even just driving back to college we come together and pray. It's been that way since I was a kid, from starting a family roadtrip around the state of Colorado when I was 7 to moving to Japan at 24 it's all been covered by my family's prayers. 

Now back to my trip: I hugged my parents goodbye, told them I loved them, and then went through security. I boarded my flight to LAX, we took off, and just after we had flown over loveland pass and all the ski areas, I fell asleep for the rest of the flight. That turned out to be a mixed blessing as it may have contributedto my lack of sleep on the trans-pacific flight,but was also the only sleep I got on the whole trip. At some point after that, I landed in LAX, and found the gate for my next flight. In the process of finding that gate, I was lured astray by the aroma of a delicious hipster coffee shop; it was pretty good, I'll post the cappuccino rating for it soon.

I boarded my flight to Japan, found my seat, and then played with the window shades for a good solid 15 minutes (If you haven't seen the window shades on the Boeing 787, you should look them up). The next 12 hours of my flight were filled with movies, failed attempts at sleeping, and a couple of times through Nickel Creek's new album. 15 hours later, I landed in Tokyo on Thursday, the 10th.

It was three in the afternoon when I landed, so I had to figure out a way to stay awake until at least 21:00. I made my way through customs and baggage claim, and stepped out the door into Japan, where my first experience was having a camera and microphone shoved in my face, and being asked several questions about myself and my arrival in Japan. I'm really not sure who told the paparazzi I was coming, but I guess I should have seen it coming; I'm kind of a big deal in Japan.

After my TV interview, I went to find my shuttle bus for the hotel (neglecting to withdraw cash). I got on the bus, took a 25 minute ride, and then checked in at the Narita Radisson. At this point it was around 16:30, I showered, changed clothes, caught a little of the Rockies game, and then decided to head into Narita city to find an ATM and some dinner. 

I took the free shuttle bus to the train station in Narita and commenced my search for an ATM. And I found about 30 of them. At various different convenience stores, none of which were close to eachother. Needless to say, the first 29 ATM's didn't work, but then the last one...... ALSO didn't work. When they told me that getting cash with an American card in Japan is nearly impossible, they weren't lying (Tokyo, the airport, and post offices being the exceptions). So after my one and a half hour tour of the convenience stores in Narita, I decided to give up and take the scenic loop* through what turned out to be a cemetery to get back to the bus stop. The next bus wasn't for another hour and a half, so I just walked around at the station to up my Fitbit stats for the day. It's amazing how long an hour takes when you're starving, thirsty, and don't have any money. Finally, the bus came, and I got on and fell asleep on the way back to the hotel, where I mozied up to my room and crashed into my bed at around 22:00. 

Find money and dinner: FAIL. Stay awake past 21:00: SUCCESS. 

The next day I woke up bright and early, ready to succeed where I had failed the night before, and also driven by an insane amount of hunger. I caught the first shuttle bus from the hotel back to the airport where I knew there had to be an ATM that would allow me access to my money. I located the airport post office, only to find out that it didn't open for another 30 minutes. So I found a nice bench, sat down, and twiddled my thumbs for half an hour; unable to access the internet, unable to buy breakfast, and unable to read any of the free magazines around. When the post office opened, I stopped by only to find out that they didn't have an ATM, so I decided to expand my search radius and eventually found a citibank ATM in one of the check-in lobbies. I took out enough cash for to last that day and the weekend, then found a breakfast restaurant where I ate some kind of rice filled omelet with tonkatsu (Fried pork cutlet) on top. It may have been the best breakfast I've ever had, or I may have just been extremely hungry.

Feeling accomplished, I grabbed a cappucino from Starbucks, and took the shuttle bus back to the hotel in order to clean up and check out before 11:00. Once I had checked out and stored my luggage, I took the bus BACK to the airport to catch a train to Narita and explore the town in daylight and on a full stomach. Narita is a pretty cool city, with a really big temple, and lots of cool walking and shopping streets. I worked my way from the train station through some winding shopping neighborhoods to the Narita Shinshoji Temple. I stopped to take a few pictures and read some informational signs a few times, but mostly just walked through the temple from the South end to the North end. From there I kept walking through some neighborhoods towards the Narita Aeon mall, where I could catch a shuttle bus back to the hotel.

I picked up my luggage, changed into my suit in the lobby restroom, and then caught the shuttle bus to the airport to meet up with the other AET's and my bosses from Souken (I'll explain what Souken is in another post) Mr. Hosoya, and Ms. Haginoya. I accidentally got off at the wrong terminal initially, so I was a couple of minutes late meeting up with them, but thankfully ran into them right as they were heading to take their luggage to some vehicles. We dropped off most of our luggage in Mr. Hosoya and Ms. Haginoya's cars, and then walked back to the terminal and bought our bus tickets to Mito. From then we had about 20 minutes to kill so I withdrew more cash to make sure I had enough for the week, and edited some of my pictures from the day in Narita. The other new AET's were all there so we had some time to share our travel experiences and talk about what all we had done since arriving. 

At 17:05 we all got on the 2 hour bus for Mito, our new home!

To Be Continued...

*Scenic loop; n. route taken when Daniel has no idea where he is.