So after waking from a little nap this evening, I peeked out my window and noticed that the horizon was rather clear. I walked out my front door, looked to the SW, and finally caught my first glimpse of Mount Fuji. I’ve been looking every day since getting here, and nearly 2 weeks later it finally showed itself. Awesome.
So the day after the Typhoon (Fri, Sept 7) brought with it something I had failed to see since landing 2 nights earlier, the sun. This was a double-edged sword however as it was insanely hot and humid, which is basically par for the course in Japan. I’ve been to Florida before and was amazed with the humidity there, but it’s on another level here. I literally walk 20 feet and I’m sweating my arse off, it’s crazy. So anyway, I decided to start my day by taking a jog through the neighborhood. What an experience. The main drag of my town is rather modern, with a lot of new buildings and all of that jazz. But as I made my way into the older part of Town, it was like entering a completely different world. The streets, if you can call them that, are all single lane and about as skinny as the width of a car. The homes and shops that line the streets combine to create a 20 foot wall, and make you feel like a mouse in a maze. Every single corner is a blind corner, and if you’re lucky there will be a nifty mirror to show you the cross traffic of cars and bikes. Unfortunately many don’t have this feature, so you need to stop and peak around the bend to avoid any collisions. If it weren’t for the Daiei store that is close to my apartment showing itself above the craziness, I would have never found my way back. All in all though, it was pretty awesome and something I will need to share with all of you via video at some point.
After jogging I decided to get some errands done and went to the grocery store. Who knew buying food could be such an intimidating experience, heh. I can read some Japanese, but trying to figure out what I was looking at in the store was near impossible. I finally managed to pick-up some neccessities, and even managed to pay for it all without incident. One thing that made me smile was finding the liquor section, and seeing a certain liquor from a certain movie; picture below. The rest of the day I pretty much just unpacked and got settled into the apartment. That night I met another one of Mike’s friends, Satomi, and along with Eric we just chilled and threw back some brewskies. All in all a pretty good day.
Here are a couple night shots from the balcony on Saturday the 8th.
Alright, so after all the craziness involved with moving 6500 miles, I awoke the next morning with a refreshing 5 hours of sleep under my belt. Much to my dismay, the size of my bedroom was indeed a reality, and not some cruel dream. But since I have not exactly lived in penthouses in the past, I wasn’t too worried about it.
Seeing my first view of Miyoshi from the balcony was rather exciting. This town is pretty comparable to Hales Corners in relative size to surrounding cities, except there is over 36K people squeezed into about 15 square kilometers.
A few hours after waking up, my other roommate Eric awoke from his own slumber. We were both pretty hungry so we decided to go hit the sushi joint down the street. I had heard about conveyor-belt sushi restaurants, but actually going to one was a pretty cool experience in itself. You basically sit down at a table, and different plates of sushi move along the belt around the restaurant. If you see something you like you just pick it up and chow down, but if you are really craving some octopus and it doesn’t seem to be floating around anywhere, you get to use this nifty touch-screen. After placing your special order, your item is placed onto a red plate, and as it approaches your location it will begin to beep at you. As if sushi in constant motion and James Bond style plates weren’t enough, they even made the manner in which you discard your plates and pay for your food fun. There’s a little hole under the hot water spout (free tea) where you insert each finished plate. Since everything is 105 yen (about $1), the screen will count everything up and then you are presented with a bill from the waiter/waitress a minute later. The kicker is that for every 5th plate you get to play some sushi wheel of fortune to try and win some prizes. Technology aside, the food there is awesome, and at 105 yen a plate I’m sure I will be making several appearances over the coming weeks.
Typhoon and Izakaya goodness as Day 1 concludes next time…
After spending all night packing and finally getting to sleep around 2 AM, I awoke a few hours later ready to begin the biggest day of my life. The nervousness that had been non-stop for the previous week or so was at a new level, as I realized that I was really about to leave my family and friends and move to Japan. I hurriedly repacked my bags to be sure that they were under the weight limit, and after taking some pictures with my family, we left for the airport. Saying goodbye to my parents and sister was really tough, but as I held back the tears, a new excitement was building as I worked my way through the security checkpoint and into the terminal.
The flight from Milwaukee to Detroit was super smooth, but the flight from Detroit to Tokyo was a little more complicated. After boarding, just as we started to move out of the docking station, the entire 747 shook violently and we came to a stop. Everyone was obviously a little concerned, and a few minutes later the captain unleashed his first words to us. “Folks, I’ve got some bad news”. Not exactly what you want to hear right before you’re supposed to travel 13.5 hours in a plane. Turned out that the towing taxi had its connection to the plane snap off, and as it rebounded it managed to whack the front wheel. The pilot explained that we would need to wait as they performed an inspection, and if everything looked OK we would be on our way. To make matters worse, the ventilation fans that were supposed to keep us cool were spewing warm air due to the engines not being on. The temperature inside the plane had to reach 100 degrees, getting to the point where we were told to close all the windows to try and keep the sun out. An uncomfortable and anxious 2 hours later the captain finally told us that everything was good to go, and we proceeded to take off and enter a heaven of AC. The flight itself had a few episodes of rather violent turbulence, but overall it wasn’t too bad. I tried to sleep a few times, but I think I only managed to get an hour of actual shut-eye, making the flight seem a bit longer than it should have.
I had an aisle seat, and most of the windows remained closed, so I really didn’t get much of a look outside during the flight. That was until the 13th hour or so when we began our descent. About 30 miles off the coast, I was able to see the typhoon that was approaching Japan, which was kind of cool. A few minutes later we finally made our way over land. My first reaction was to think of all the history that had happened below over the past 2 or 3 thousand years. To actually see Japan with my own eyes sent a wave of emotions throughout my whole body, literally giving me chills. It was one of the most thrilling moments of my life, and one I hope to never forget.
We touched down at 5:46 PM local time on Wednesday, and I was officially in Japan. I was kind of worried about going through immigration and customs, as I had a lot of random junk packed, but after all was said and done it was surprisingly non-eventful. I walked away with a year-long visa stamp and my golden ticket into Japan. One thing that was rather surprising was the amount of new recruits congregated in the lobby. I was expecting maybe 5-10, but there was easily 50-75 fresh-faced instructors. We each received our welcome packets, handed off some luggage to the courier service, and broke off into groups based on our destination. I was originally supposed to travel by bus into Kawagoe, pretty much bypassing the downtown Tokyo area. As it turned out though, we took a bus straight into downtown, on our way to Shinjuku Station, where we were to catch another train to our home stations. As we left the airport and hopped on the freeway, everything looked very similar to home, except for the driving on the left side thing and the Japanese text everywhere. It was dark by this time, so you could see the ominously bright glow of Tokyo all across the horizon. It was kind of eerie actually, as I knew that it was Tokyo, but I had no idea what to expect when we actually got there. What I should have expected apparently, was to have my jaw hit the ground as I took in one of the craziest sites I have ever seen. The city of Chicago has been my favorite place for a long time. For some reason, being in a massive city like that makes me incredibly excited. Seeing Tokyo however was like seeing Chicago, New York, and LA thrown side by side. You really can’t describe how huge it is. Unfortunately I was too amazed to even think of taking a picture, but I hope to get some pictures of that view up sometime soon.
We first dropped off about half of the bus in Shibuya, and then departed towards Shinjuku. If you’ve ever seen Lost in Translation, where Meesta Halis is riding into the city by taxi, that’s exactly what I was greeted with. Being in Tokyo at the micro level is insane. Neon everywhere, hundreds and hundreds of different shops, and thousands of people out and about like it’s a Saturday night instead of a Wednesday.
We finally arrived at Shinjuku Station around 10:30. For those of you who don’t know, Shinjuku Station is the busiest train station in the world. When you walk down to the sub-level, it’s a bit overwhelming, as you are thrown into a sea of people that doesn’t seem to end. If it wasn’t for my escort, I probably would have just fumbled around and got lost for the rest of the night. At any rate, we worked our way through the maze of people and boarded a train bound for Ikebukuro, which is the closest part of Tokyo to my apartment. From there we switched trains, hopping on the Tobu Tojo line, and arrived at Tsuruse Station 25 minutes later. It was quite late at this point, but my guide walked me out of the station all the way to my apartment about a half-mile away. Walking through what was to be my new neighborhood at night like that was an awesome experience. It had just finished raining, combining with the random neon glow of signs and street lights, to make it one of the most surreal walks of my lifetime. Once again it’s hard to explain, but the vibe it gave me was exactly what I’ve been searching for for a long time.
After getting a little lost on the way, we finally arrived at my apartment, and I said thanks and goodbye to my guide. I chatted briefly with one of my new roomates, sent off a quick email to my family, and went to my room to crash. My initial reaction to the apartment was that it was quite normal to what I’d seen back home. The one thing that was obvious was that my room was freaking tiny. I’ll be throwing a video tour up sometime soon, but you’ll be able to see in my next post just how small the space is.
I finally fell asleep around 1 AM, as I prepared for my first full day in Japan.
