I just spent 24 hours traveling, almost exactly. I left my New York apartment at 8am yesterday (Monday), and arrived in Okazaki at 9pm Tuesday in local time -- which is 8am Tuesday back home. That is insane.
The flight was a codeshare with ANA (All Nippon Airlines) so even though I had booked through United I had to check in at the ANA counter. There were lots of Nihonjin and the check-in agents were greeting everyone in Japanese. Then when I was in the gate area, all the announcements were also in Japanese, though sometimes repeated afterwards in English. I understood a lot more than I was expecting to (e.g., "now boarding rows 30 to 40"). I was pleased to find some things coming back to me as I listened to the conversations going on around me. It helped assuage some of my worry about how much I've forgotten since I last studied in the Fall.
The flight was just shy of 14 hours. Guys, that is a really, really long time to spend on a plane, especially when that plane has no power outlets and you managed to brilliantly pick the seat way in the back that doesn't recline. :/ I did get a little sleep, though.
I always find international flights weird, because you do all the things you would normally do on a plane -- eat something, read for a bit, listen to some music, fall asleep for awhile -- and then, instead of the flight being over, there's still hours to go. Super weird. I've also decided that, as enamored as I am of my smartphone and as excited as I was that I can now pack just one device instead of also bringing an mp3 player when I travel -- I need to go back to traveling with my mp3 player. My phone's battery life just doesn't cut it. I was a little sad knowing that my little MuVo TX could easily have provided me with music for all 14 hours of that flight on a single AAA battery. That would have made it go a lot faster. Well, lesson learned.
As for my laptop, I used up its ~3h of battery life playing Leather Goddesses of Phobos, which is my favorite old Infocom game. I recently unearthed it again after it came up in conversation. It's awesome. You should play it. I was pleased to find I don't really remember how to solve most of the puzzles.
They fed us two meals on the plane. One thing I love about ordering vegetarian meals on planes is that you always get served first... not that I want VIP treatment or anything, but I like getting served earlier so I don't have to stay awake lest I sleep through the food being served. The "dinner" was way mediocre lasagna and sad bruised salad, but had a tasty roll and fruit. The "breakfast" was much better, some kind of fat noodles with tofu in soy sauce.
Luckily, the plane did provide free movies, so I watched the new Alice in Wonderland (Don't know why you guys didn't like it! I thought it was a great combination of pretty and dark. Also, Johnny Depp as the Hatter is adorable). Then, a while later, I watched A Beautiful Mind, which was certainly a better movie, but probably one I'll never watch again. (I enjoyed it. But it's not only more serious than my usual fare, I think it was way better for my going into it without knowing what to expect.)
Anyway! You are not here to read movie reviews.
Once I got to Narita airport, Customs and Immigration were a breeze. I accidentally got in some peoples' way until I remembered to stand on the left, not right, on escalators. I wandered around the airport until I found the "travel center" I'd looked up online that would sell me train tickets for my entire route and let me pay with a credit card. Their staff also spoke English, which was a bonus since I still don't always trust my listening comprehension, especially when it comes to things like times and numbers.
I had expected to have more trouble navigating the train system, especially with two transfers to make along the way. I had to take the "Narita Express" into Tokyo, then switch to a Shinkansen from Tokyo to Toyohashi, then get on a local train to Okazaki. But it turns out I have enough general knowledge of how train systems work to mostly figure it out (though I did keep feeding the wrong ticket to the machine and having to hand it to the JR employee to sort out, and I'm still not sure I understand what was going on there, but they were very friendly about it).
Luckily, I'd read online that the express trains had reserved seating, so I knew to look for that on my ticket and line up by the correct car. Between reading hiragana, pattern-matching kanji with what was on my ticket, listening to the announcements and occasionally asking someone for directions (a task for which, thankfully, advanced Japanese is not really required), I made all my transfers without a hitch.
I took a lot of kind of pointless photos from train windows, many of which are blurry, but maybe it will give you a feel for how things look. I saw lots of pretty rivers and bridges. Japan is pretty adorable -- everything is at what seems to my eyes to be 3/4 scale. The roads are tiny, the cars are tiny, the houses are tiny. It's super cute. I was sitting on the left-hand side of the shinkansen, so I got to see the ocean here and there. Then it got dark, and I fell asleep for awhile.
I made it to Okazaki around 8:30pm and someone from Yamasa was waiting to drive me over to campus and give me the keys to my adorable dorm/apartment. In the way of dorm rooms, it is small and a bit ugly and the kitchen smells odd, but I love it already. It has a little balcony and air conditioning and internet. I cannot take good pictures of it, because it is tiny and I only have a 50mm lens with me, but I took some pictures just the same.
I can't believe I was scared of this -- the Japanese are so nice and it's so beautiful here. And in just 24 hours my Nihongo has already improved so much. It's so much fun to talk to native speakers and have actual communication happen. I can make small talk about the weather. It's pretty great. ^__^
I don't know why I had this weird feeling that Japan was going to be super intimidating. Of course, the last time I visited I didn't know the language at all, I didn't live in a big city with a complicated train system, and I wasn't prepared for some things that this time, I knew to expect (like Japanese-style toilets). So it's easier in a lot of ways. But also I think I'm just more confident now about admitting that I don't know things, interacting with people even if I don't know the right words, etc.
I'm going to try to think more about that when I'm better-rested.
Now, a much-needed shower and bed. Tomorrow is for exploring the area, buying some supplies, recovering from jetlag and hopefully even doing some studying; I'm scheduled to take a placement test at 9am on Thursday.
(full Flickr set)
Jaa mata!
Oh man, this is super exciting! I'm so jealous, you are going to have so much fun :)
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