9/19 Arriving In Tokyo

Before going on my flight, we went and checked out the USACE Bay Model in Sausalito (also as a visit to my possible future employers). It's a cool place! I recoomend it.

I chose ZIPAIR, the cheaper option as opposed to Japan Airlines, and had a nice flight despite my parents concerns. After the 10 hour flight from SFO, I arrived at Narita Airport in Chiba prefecture (about 1 hour out of Tokyo). The flight was over before I knew it, despite being 10 hours long, it was more tolerable than when I flew to Maine. I watched three movies: Lemonade Mouth, Cars, and Tangled. And, took my time to eat the food my mom graciously made for me. However, towards the end of the flight I was concerned that I would have to declare the blueberry muffins and pie she made. So, I scarfed them down and gave the containers to the flight attendant to throw away. I took the rest of the food with me.

Immigration and customs were alright, even when I had to go find the special counter to declare my dried fruit and nuts I brought for people. I also didn't get a work permit in immigration. The immigration officer was speaking so softly that I couldn't understand him. This will be a problem if my department wants me to be an English tutor.

I met up with my classmate from Sac State, Nathan, at Narita International Airport. We had to take three trains to get back to his apartment and I was seriously getting tired. My three suitcases also caused difficulty for us. When we got back I went and bought a bento before sleeping on the floor. The change Wakana gave me helped me out significantly.

9/20 First Full Day

My first full day in Japan started at 5:30 AM. I woke up super early because I slept on the hard wood floor. I couldn't really do anything because I had no internet or way to take a shower (no towels). So, I just waited a couple hours for Nathan to wake up. When he did, we got ready to go as he had something at school to do. He is studying abroad at Waseda University in Tokyo, a very prestigious private university. I walked him to his course registration event, and then I had to figure out what to do.

I first went to the university museum which was pretty boring. I don't recommend it. After that I decided to go to the Natsume Souseki museum which would be my challenge for the day. He's pretty much the "Mark Twain" of Japan and wrote a book which made Matsuyama famous. It's called "Botchan" and is pretty strongly based off of his experience teaching in Matsuyama and failure to make friends with anyone.

To get there, I had to walk through many narrow roads and past tons of construction. I heard that people primarily walked on the left side of the road but that didn't seem to be the case. 

It was around 84 degrees but very humid!!

The museum was small and cheap. It was about 300 yen for entrance and they handed me an English audio guide. You couldn't just take pictures of everything, only when there was a special sign. They talked about boring things like how he liked to eat sweets. It was alright but not too interesting. There was a visitor there wearing a Las Vegas Raiders jacket.

After that I met him somewhere and we went to this popular fast food curry restaurant called "Coco's." It was pretty decent curry and endless water, which was perfect. After that I probably went and got towels at Don Quixote (the super popular discount store). We also went and got a futon for me to sleep on from Daiso. I carried it all the way back to the apartment. For dinner we went to a conveyer belt sushi place.

9/21

This was where I visited for that day. We didn't really go to that many places. We took the train to a suburb called "Sangen-jaya" and visited some locations from the video game "Persona 5." The character you play in stays in the second floor of a coffee and curry shop named "Leblanc." That picture is on the left, but the red cover on the right is actually the entrance in the game.

I'll take some time to explain how to use the Tokyo metro system. There are several companies that own the lines, so it gets complicated. Actually so complicated that Google created a special feature for Google Maps that allows you to navigate in a station by camera due to how complex they can be. When you want to go, you find you local station and go inside to the fare machines. Look above for the station you want to get off at and it will tell you how much to pay. Usually between 200 and 400 yen. If not you can go on the fare machine and manually search the station and it will tell you how much to pay. This is all if you don't buy a commuter card like SUICA or PASMO which make the process very simple (it's like a BART Clipper card). So when you buy a ticket you recieve it in paper form and go deposit it in the yellow slit on the entrance gate. Only one or two of them have it so be careful! Then you follow the signs to make sure you are getting on the right line and go wait for the train. In the train, they will make it very clear when they are arriving at which station, so just wait until yours is called.

When you get off, go find the exit gates and deposit your slip into the yellow slit. If you get off at the wrong stop or accidentally paid for the wrong station, you can adjust the ticket fare. Something which we had to do quite often. :)

I think this day we also went and checked out Akihabara, which was horrendously crowded.

9/22

For breakfast we decided to go back to that restaurant from the game and try it. It was coffee and Indian food instead of Japanese curry. But it was fine, I don't remember what I got but it was good.

After that my classmate had a special event for exchange students at his university. I walked him over and we thought that maybe I could sneak in. Students had to fill in forms before they went inside, so I made up all the information and entered. There were very few clubs present as the room was so small. He said he wasn't really interested in any so we went somewhere else. Next door there was an English speaker chat or some kind of event going on in their international student center so I once again filled out the form with false information and made him go. 

They sat me down at a small table with 6 other students. One from Spain, one from Japan, one from America (Utah), one from the UK (Birmingham), one from Ecuador, one from China, one from Taiwan, and then me. At the beginning the Chinese student was hating on somebody's country which I thought was incredibly disrespectful but everyone seemed to tolerate it. We were given a laminated piece of paper which had basic questions on it. I was asked different things such as my major, why I chose the university, and why I am studying Japanese. I had to make up all of my answers. It was fun.

The students talked about how everyone at the university was so smart, presitigous, fancy, and whatnot. I thought all of that was so funny. A school of smart kids was outsmarted by a Californian studying camping.

Nathan had something else to do after that so I took the train to Asakusa by myself. It was scary. I made it though, and almost immediately after I got there I kind of wanted to leave as it was so crowded. I escaped to a small riverside park and just relaxed. I saw some boats go by underneath the huge Tokyo Tower.

I later decided to meet Nathan in Akihabara, so I decided to walk 3.5 miles to get there. First I went to the massive Ueno park, and then to Akihabara.

Nothing else really after that.