First Impressions

"I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself." - Maya Angelou.

At long last, a blog entry!

Indeed, I have made it to Tokyo all in one piece, safe and sound. It has been about three days since I have been in the city, and there is much to write about. Unfortunately, I am also typing on a Japanese keyboard, so my blog entries may be much shorter that I would have originally liked. However, there has been so much that has happened in the last three days, I feel as though I could write pages upon pages of what I have seen, done, heard, tasted, smelled, and encountered.

The plane ride, which is perhaps the most obvious place to start, was a grueling challenge in extreme patience. Mostly, however, because I accidentally left my glasses in my luggage and not in my carry-on, forcing me to stay awake for the majority of the trip lest my eyes burn from sleeping with my contacts in. Instead, I attempted to watch some of the awful in-flight entertainment, but chose to mostly brush up on my Japanese for about nine hours. The most interesting part of the whole flight was that I was one of only about twenty people on the plane that was not Japanese. Already, I knew that this would be pretty different from anything that I had ever done before.

Landing in Narita airport, I managed to navigate around, get my bags (and finally my glasses) and meet up with my driver, Mr. Takahara. Takahara-san was also chauffeuring another student, Phil, who was also staying in the same residence as I was. After a two-hour drive through Tokyo, we finally arrived in Saitama prefecture, which is one of the suburbs of greater Tokyo. The residence, the "First House Narimasu" is spartan at best. Upon first impression, it was a little nerve-racking as it wasn`t immeadiately apparent where things like the shower were or how on earth I was going to cook in the kitchen. However, over the last three days, I have come to meet a lot of really great people in the First House Narimasu. Narimasu is a guest house, with about eight students staying here but mostly Japanese people renting out spaces from month-to-month, which is apparently quite common here and what many students choose to do. The atmosphere took a little getting used to at first, but our house manager, Fumi-san, has been exceedingly helpful (providing maps, directions, etc; he even took us down personally to the "konbini" (convenience store) and department store). Last night on Sunday, he threw a big Japanese barbeque party with everyone in the First House out and about enjoying various grilled meats, fresh sushi and other exotic foods. It was a great experience as we shared stories, laughed at how bad my Japanese was and how I had several requests to teach English. After some getting used to, I have found that the First House Narimasu is everywhere I want to be as it offers an exceptionally real and authentic cultural experience.

Vending Machines
Even more vending machines (selling...beer?)...Ah ah - don`t think that it was that easy

Over the weekend, I managed to go with some other students to visit two major areas of Tokyo, Harajuku and Akihabara. Harajuku, which is very well known for its "street fashion" and stores, was something else to see and be a part of. It was truly a part of the city that I know that I will visit more often.

Akihabara Electric Town is home to all of the manga and anime (Japanese animation and comics), video games and electronics in Tokyo. Stores upon stores, each going seven, eight and nine stories, are full of all of amazing goods and wares. I have been to Akihabara a couple of times, each time finding something new, exotic or just strange.

Lastly, I`ll mention that the Tokyo metro is not nearly as daunting as I thought. I hope to make a separate entry on just the metro system as it`s exceptionally complex, but amazingly sophisticated, clean and detailed.

Tomorrow will be my first official day of class as we had a basic orientation and seating today in Chiyoda-ku at the Academy. I`m very excited to be at class tomorrow and begin the offical course work. Undeniably, there are a lot of things happening right now, most of which I can`t even begin to describe with any significant detail. However, I hope to be able to make blog entries more frequently now that I know my schedule better and have much of my basic needs (like...food) met. So far, sukii-desu (I like it).

P.S.: Matt, this one`s for you: Watermelon!