Arrival

Contrary to my usual habit, but very much as I expected, I was not able to sleep through all of the eleven-hour flight over the Pacific. It wasn't excitement -- there isn't much to see but clouds and occasional glimpses of ocean until the last twenty minutes, and even on the plane, it still hadn't totally hit me that my overseas adventure was already started. Even in the San Francisco airport, when I couldn't use the automated check-in machine because my stay was going to be longer than a month, it was just the airport routine, not the beginning of a new experience. I didn't sleep simply because it's a really long flight, and I'd gotten a few hours of sleep the night before. They weren't showing any movies I wanted to watch, so I entertained myself by reading textbooks and trying to catch at least the grammatical structure of the announcements in Japanese.

As we approached Kansai airport, though, and I could catch glimpses of Japanese mountains, islands, and metropolitans through the clouds, I started thinking over and over again, "This is Japan. I live here now." The final descent nearly brushed the tops of the lightposts of a bridge across a bay, and we landed right next to the water. The shock of moving hit that much harder as I got off the plane into an airport full of vending machines (only selling drinks, as I recall), signs I couldn't read, and child-like voices making incomprehensible announcements. Six other students from Stanford had arrived on the same flight, so we made our way through customs together. We stood in a long line to have our fingerprints and pictures taken by NEC equipment, were advised to do our alien registrations as soon as possible, and then dragged our hefty suitcases out into Japanese territory.

After changing money, sending a suitcase ahead by takyubin, collecting maps, redeeming rail passes for those who had purchased them in the US, and having a very confusing encounter with a vending machine, we set off to find a hotel. I hadn't really gotten as far as booking one, but some of the other people arriving on the same plane had, so I followed them to a hostel in Southern Osaka. We missed our turn and ended up wandering the streets for a while, gathering some very confused impressions of the city. From the train, we saw all sorts of commercial buildings, busy streets, and a ferris wheel. Once we got off, however, we ended up wandering shady-looking back alleys. Everyone we asked for directions was very helpful. The proprietors of another hotel made phone calls for us to try to figure out where our hostel might be. Since we had a Korean speaker in our group, a Japanese man who spoke Korean volunteered to show us where it was. He didn't actually know, though, so he just walked with us until we found someone else who did know where it was, and also volunteered to lead us there. On the way, though, we passed one drunk man chasing another in circles. As I walked past, he hit the other man upside the head with a sack he was carrying, and the man fell to the ground about a foot short of hitting me.

With the help of the second volunteer, though, we finally located our hostel and checked in for the night. All of the rooms were single-person, and like most Japanese hotels sharing a room would not have reduced the cost, but the price per room was only about $10. The four who had reservations got "Western" rooms -- from what I hear, basically a closet with a TV and a bed. The two of us who were newcomers got Japanese rooms. They seemed bigger, possibly just because the bed didn't take up space, but also had tatami floors and futons, which was a nice introduction to the country, if not very substantially different. After moving our bags in and, in one case, taking advantage of the beer-and-sake vending machine on the first floor, we headed out into the city for our first Japanese meal. Stores were closing, but we did find one place willing to serve us. I had katsu-donburi. I had never tried it before, but so far it's one of my favorite foods in Japan.

After dinner, we headed back to the hostel and crashed into our various styles of beds. Breakfast was Japanese-style instant ramen. It had three different packets to add, one of powder, one of sauce, and one of vegetables, and actually tasted like food without anything additional added to it. Since check-out was early and we didn't particularly want to lug our baggage around Osaka, we got straight onto the train for Kyoto and arrived at the Co-op Inn one hour before check-in and roughly a soba lunch and a quick nap ahead of the beginning of orientation.