Summary of the Past Few Days

As the title reads this is a summary of the past few days, including my first two? three? days in Japan. I'll start with the old and end with the new, don't get mad at me for a lack of pictures or details.

Now to find my notebook...Aha! There is is. Crud, gotta move the desk later, papers fell out of it. Great...

Arm Notes: 08-29-2011 (since I didn't have paper at the time)

Getting to the Airport (that was hectic)

Next time, I think we'll all take the light rail... Traffic was soo incredibly thick before 4pm, as well as construction and broken street lights. People really need to learn how to drive. There was RAIN! That wasn't much rainfall, but people couldn't drive to save their brakes. And grandpa covered parking when we got there.

Entering the Airport

Both suitcases were 63 lbs and each was $200 extra for the 13lbs over weight)
if I don't lose the luggage weight (Which I doubt I won't) using up some of the stuff I brought over, I will burn some of my clothes on the return trip.
Stressed from Nana changing her opinion/words soo much. That resulted in a grumpy goodbye, not that I wasn't already sleepy having only 4 hrs of sleep the night before. (I'm sure grandpa was stressed too, and Nana, but hers were probably for different reasons...)
Finding the first gate at the airport was hard because it was not only soo far away, but shoved way back into a little corner in which several other west coast flights were booked for.

Take Off!... Delayed.

My first flight was delayed by 30 minutes, which is bad because the flight attendant at the Check In to board called my name on the microphone (and I jumped in surprise) to change my flights. I was told this at 5:40pm. So that resulted in a glight exchange, so instead of having two flights from United Airlines with MSP to O'Hara, then O'Hara to LAX, I just went on Delta's 7:50 flight to LAX.
After a mad spring from one far side of the airport to the other (extreme opposite sides of the airport, gates E and G, not as close as you'd think). I got a call from Grandpa and told him and Nana the good news, then called Ann and told her and Norma the good news.

The Wait

Ran into a friend, Ashley R. who was working at a "Chili's Too!" right outside of where I was waiting. She didn't recognize me at first and thought I was waving to someone else. The restaurant had a small metal 2.5-3ft divider for the restaurant which she let me through (it's really only for exiting). The restaurant had great music that I liked anyways. Ie. Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit and Summer Loving from Grease. "Big Mouth's Burgers" is written on the side of the "restaurant". I got free cheesecake because Ashley's boss paid for it. It had strawberry syrup on the plate for eating and sprinkled powdered sugar on it. She kept giving me lots of water, at first because I asked for it, and then because I had a long way to go she said. And airplane water doesn't taste good at all. I spoke briefly to Patrick before takeoff.

Plane Ride #1

Cheesy video was great! (safety one on the Delta airplane). Two people next to me on the plane were nice non-Minnesotans. In fact they were Canadian. Original seating was me inbetween the two (mother and daughter) but then they let me sit next to the window for the ride which was nice. We were on the left side of the plane. They had hilarious stories and once we got above the gray matter outside of the windows (the clouds) there was a very pretty horizon above the clouds. An amazing fade of pink to blue. We went through the in flight catalogue, and I found "spuse" in place of spouse! The in flight movie was "Water For Elephants" and I could only remember the french word for sleep, not the Japanese word (which I now remember was nemasu.) I wrote out all of the hiragana to make sure I remembered them to kill some time and drew a picture of the plane's wing in the night's darkness. It was harder than I thought, since the lights were out inside of the plane too mostly. Then I played mind and word games with myself for a little while. The Canadian mother's name was Roxy and her daughter's name was Kendel.

Plane Ride #'s 2 &3 (Asiana Airline)

On the first flight of these two, it was a 12 hours flight. They had prepackaged in flight blankets and slippers and tiny reddish pillows for each person. The prepackaged meaning that they were in plastic. So were the plane's headphones actually. The headphones were free to use, but belonged on the plane. there was a tiny screen in the back of each chair and tons of bathrooms on both planes. Both planes had different seating. The first was 3 and 3, the second was 2 then 4 then 2. The airport's meals weren't bad, just weird to eat broccoli on the side of a cheese omlette and a cherry tomato too. A packet of ketchup as well for the ham I suppose and the blueberry muffin was really good but kind of sweet! The flight attendants gave us hot towels when we boarded the first flight. The first flight's bathrooms were also very neat (the second as well, but was only less than a 2 hour flight, so no need for the grandiose-ness of the first flight) with facial paper towels and cups for gargling and toothbrushes with tiny tubes of toothpaste with each one. The last hour of the first flight had a video with 6 different massages for flight fatigue and video commercials for the Incheon Airport (the one that I landed in Korea at.) Apparently their airports are soo awesome they have really clean and cool showers in them for people stuck inbetween flights. It looks like a freakin' spa! An they also had music videos for the country of South Korea... that was a little unusual.

When I got off the plane in Japan and passed through customs and whatnot, I met a staff member from the school and a student. I turned the $200 traveller's checks into cash because I would need it for the next few days he said. He was right. I got on a bus right after that with another student fresh off a different flight and got off at the first stop which had to be several miles away. There we met some students who took us to our host families homes. The guy and his student went on a different train than I and Miyu. We talked a lot about stuff on the train, of course anime we liked and other sweet stuff. Then We met my host mom and her doggie Joy at the Train Station and walked halfway to her house with the suitcases before calling a Taxi. They were sweating a lot, and I had the one that was the most awkward to carry. When we got to her house, we drank lots of tea and talked until Miyu had to leave and get my housemate from Korea who is also a student at OGU. I unpacked while host mom cooked dinner, and she and I ate together. That was after she woke me up when I had fallen asleep on the floor after putting most of my stuff away. Then I met my fellow student and Miyu went home. I took a quick shower and went to bed. I woke up exactly 12 hours later at 7:30am. Then I went through my day and forced myself to stay awake somewhere between 10 and 11:30 before going to bed.. The host mom showed us how to make ourselves breakfast and where the shopping center was, and where to get a taxi and the train station. All of that was in the same place. We ran through the rulebook at breakfast, though I had already once while waiting for Miyu and Soyeon. I woke up again at 7:30am, but rolled over and slept for another two hours. Then Soyeon went out to meet a friend and explore while I goofed around on the net and got accustomed to my new living space. Then host mom asked me if I wanted to go with her to the grocery store, and we went on a walk to better understand the neighborhood and just to talk in English and Japanese. We discuss a lot each time we do talk. We bought some foods and came back. Host mom cooked while I finished washing and waxing my dreads. Soyeon was late to dinner, but since we don't have cellphones and don't remember host mom's number yet, we just waited a little for her. She showed up 10-15 minutes into dinner. She was soaked from the rain. I did the dishes, since Soyeon was doing laundry and showed up late. She will do them tomorrow. Its how it works since host mom cooks. I'm listening to the rain now and figured I should do this now before I put it off much longer. I will probably post tomorrow in more detail, now that I'm all caught up.