Ohayoo minna san!
Wow. Just wow. Its only been 12 hours since i've been in Tokyo and there are soo many things I want to talk about. I guess the first thing I should mention is my initial reaction landing at Narita airport and getting off the plane. The flight attendant was talking over the loudspeaker in Japanese, I was surrounded by Japanese people, then walked off the plane into this gorgeous but very Japanese terminal. I was overcome with such a strange feeling like "My goodness Drew what did you get yourself into?" My mind was suddenly in a state of hilarity, I had this HUGE grin from ear to ear while muttering to myself some incomprehensible garble...craziness. Well from the terminal to customs to the baggage claim, every airport employee I had to talk to, assumed I was Japanese (or at least spoke it) began speaking to me in the native tongue. Now I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before but my Japanese is, for lack of a better term, horrible. (More on this later)
I finally got my two 60lb bags along with my backpack and found my student "escort" (no not that kind!), Kikuchi-san. He spoke great English and we were practicing my Japanese all the way back to the dorm (2.5 hrs, 3 trains, 5 staircases later). And yes, staircases because many of the escalators were not working due to the need to conserve power due to the Fukushima Daiichi powerplant situation.
We arrived at my dorm and as soon as I walked in there were five International students waiting for me looking absolutely thrilled to see me. I was thinking dang I must be cool! lol. Maybe I am, but turns out they were just excited to see a new face because over the past 3 weeks 30 of the other International residents and their good friends were sent home by their respective home colleges because of the delicate situation here in Japan. They were the only ones left, the rest of the rooms have been filled with Japanese students. They were great though, very friendly, very informative, and overall a great group of guys.
There is so much more to say, but if you are still reading you probably have better things to do right now. So my main conclusion: my Japanese language skills need to improve and ASAP! But this is going to be a great journey filled with plenty of excitement, learning, embarrassment.. etc etc....
I'll keep updating you all later!
:D how exciting. and very interesting that only 5 of those int'l students were left as 30 of the others had to go home.. .so sad. but you get more attention now! haha. Have fun today :)
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