The Real Slim Shady

...where by "Slim Shady" I actually mean "Day One." So here’s an actual legit rundown of my actual first day in Japan, so ignore the previous post I made. This one actually isn’t terribly interesting, not gonna lie, but I wanted to document everything about this summer so I can look back and remember things fondly (hopefully) someday.

I’m really really glad I signed up for the group travel plan. I was actually really stressed out about the whole going to a foreign country by myself where I can barely string two words together, and Monday after puzzling through the poor Engrish on the cell phone rental application for PuPuRu (special discount for HIF), Maji and I faxed it in and then we looked at dresses nearby where I shamelessly pulled the whole “I’m-leaving-for-Japan-tomorrow-and-won’t-see-you-for-months-please-try-on-this-dress-and-make-me-happy” card at Maji’s expense. Yay! Much indecision and arguing about where to go found us at Starbucks shortly afterwards, and then we crashed my house for a bit. It was really good to see her one last time as well as to get my mind of Japan for a little while. Anyway, the whole group travel plan thing definitely made everything a lot easier for me, which is good seeing as I apparently even fail at operating public telephones....in Chicago.

Tuesday morning, I left my house at 4 AM and with just half an hour of sleep, flew through ANA Airways from San Antonio to Chicago and Chicago to Narita Airport in Tokyo, and I was dead asleep on every flight before the plane had even taken off. My flight to Japan was actually full of a large number of Vietnamese people upon whose conversations (in Vietnamese and Japanese) I eavesdropped shamelessly to see if I could understand what everybody was saying. Although I’ve no prior experience with international flights , I must say that ANA has great service. I had 3+ meals, and I even asked the attendant "あのう、オレンジジュスがありますか？" and was mildly pleased with myself for that epic bit of Japanese on my part. Other than "ありがとうございます" and "すみません！", I can't seem to string very many Japanese words together to effectively communicate with people.

Another awesome thing about ANA Airways? The ANA Sky Channel! I contemplating watching either Valkyrie or Swordfish, but opting for studying for my placement exam while listening to music instead. One of the audio channels offered actually played so-called popular songs of the western world, and I definitely listened to Taylor Swift's "Love Song" a bajillion times and even gave Eminem's "We Made You" a listen, if only because Maji would want me to. Getting through Quarantine, Immigration, and Customs was fun. It took maybe an hour, mostly because I fail at reading instructions (English or Japanese), but security really didn't seem all that tight, which I thought was odd. There were a ridiculous amount of mask-donning individuals who looked very alarmed if you so much as looked at them for fear that they might catch swine flu. Anyway, I arrived in Terminal 1 and found the HIF counter w/o any further issues where I ran into Ashok! They passed out limousine shuttle bus tickets to our hotel but the lady took back Ashok's ticket a little after handing him his and told him to wait, so we parted ways only moments after our tearful reunion. So sad. Chris Brown (yes, like the rapper :P) showed up at the HIF counter only moments later, so at least Ashok didn't get too lonely.

About an hour later, we arrived at the Hotel Pacific Tokyo, which is by far one of the nicest hotels at which I’ve stayed. My shuttle decided to reconvene in the lobby for the purposes of seeking out dinner, but Elliot magically appeared shortly before we were leaving and I decided to wait with him for his shuttle rather than abandon him as he waited in the lobby for his shuttle. After failtastic attempts to explain to the server that Ashok is a vegetarian and can’t eat meat, we ended up wandering around Tokyo, although our group accidentally split up and Ashok, Chris, Trina, and I wandered around for a bit and even ended up at an Aquadome somehow. The path leading up to it featured a lot of pretty lights and glowing dolphin silhouette things, complete with creepy music playing from speakers along the way. Yeah. Too bad I didn't have my camera on me.

Back at the hotel, Ashok and I got off the elevator on the 17^th floor (see photo below) to find ourselves face to face with none other than JOHN GREENAWALT, holy crap. I’d given him the name of our hotel and my room number earlier via facebook chat, failing any other means of communication, and he decided to show up and say hello which was waaay cool. I also met my roommate for the night, Melissa, who’s this really awesome senior at Columbia. Our third roommate, Meghan, showed up later, although I didn’t get as much of a chance to chat with her. It came as quite a surprise for me when she asked to borrow my laptop to send her husband an email, at which point I found out that she was actually a grad student. Crazy. Anyhow, I pretty much crashed the instant I fell into bed, only to get up at 4:45 AM for our uber early shuttle to Haneda Airport to fly to Hakodate. I’m okay with the waking up and craziness though, because having people tell me what to do and where to go definitely helped make me less stressed and frantic that first day. I guess that facebook quiz was pretty accurate, at least about me if not so much about ethnicity (or racial sensitivity):

Thanh took the What is Your Actual Ethnicity? quiz and the result is European

You're very reserved, you're usually good with whatever comes along. You're quiet, calm, and you don't really have a problem with somebody else making all the rules, in fact, you prefer it.

Umm...what? Fail. Waking up the next morning at 4:45 wasn't fun, but luckily I already have bad life habits which include poor sleeping patterns. The group travel plan provided for a nice boxed lunch consisting of a bottle of water and 5 adorable little sandwiches of various types in a little plastic box. Yum! We rushed to the airport and barely caught our flight. Ashok and I got seats next to each other and proceeded to cram as much of the JSL supplemental material from the ClassesV2 server which the sensees had uploaded, with little success. A short bus ride later with a stop at the hotel found us at HIF awkwardly milling about in the dining hall before our placement exams (written and oral). More to follow later...

And photos:

View from the 17th floor of the Hotel Pacific Tokyo, which Melissa and I thought looked like Paris (not that I've been there or anything)

This was the JR Shinagawa Station in Tokyo by which I'll be doing a lot of traveling post-program. The JR system practically holds a monopoly on the transportation system throughout the mainland of Japan.