In Japan! (The One About Arrival Fascination)

The day I’d been waiting for had finally come, and it felt like it crept up on me out of nowhere. Even when I was standing with my family and friends in the Domestic Terminal of Brisbane airport, the reality hadn’t even begun to hit home. It was pretty hard to say goodbye to everyone I’d been with for so long, but the prospect of being in Japan within 24 hours or so was exciting! Mixed emotions all around, I’d say.

It was probably hours later, coming into Bangkok Airport after a long and gruelling 9-hour flight, that I think I really started to realise. General gist of Bangkok Airport is that it was impossible to work out where a Starbucks was, despite help from the interactive map terminals; the security was even tighter than in Australia; and when we got off the bus we had to take to board the plane, the weather outside was humid like I’ve never imagined!

So taking a bit of a step back, the flight to Thailand itself wasn’t that spectacular… the novelty of flying quickly wore thin and boredom struck… It was nice to get to meet the other students flying to Japan from Australia though (Or rather, Craig, Samantha and Lilianna; Carissa and Alistair met up with us in Bangkok airport). Attempts to sleep on the flight were unsuccessful to say the least; the same was the case on our flight to Narita airport.

And so we arrived in Japan; deprived of sleep and showers for 24 hours and generally not in the best mood. What’s the first thing we get to do? Fill out forms! And then stand in a really, really long line at immigration. With all the formalities over and done with we finally met up with the PIEE staff waiting for us as well as a group of students coming from Thailand (Who were actually on the same flight as us, as we found out later on) and a French boy named Hugo. It was decided that we should call home using the payphones and at some point we decided to test the weather outside and were greeted by freezing cold! A world away from Bangkok, that’s for sure.

Much to our dismay, we weren’t given any time to rest at all, and shortly after making our calls and sending off our suitcases we crammed our bags into a bus and were whisked off to Excel Hotel Tokyu in Narita, where we’d be spending the night before heading off to the center where our orientation was being held the next day. We left our bags in the lobby and had a bit of free time to wander around and enjoy the scenery.

Soon after we met up again as an entire group and the PIEE staff took us on a tour of the area. We visited Niomon Gate and various other touristy sights within walking distance. And we did do a lot of walking, or maybe it was just the jet lag and general crappy feeling from taking 3 consecutive plane flights the day before that made it seem that way… By this point we’d been joined by a group of students from Finland, among them was a girl named Elina who was being filmed by a documentary about exchange students’ lives in Japan. Naturally, we all got a bit of camera time by the end of the orientation week, since the cameraman was trailing us pretty much everywhere we went.

So after a lot of walking we came to a shopping mall and I spotted my first Starbucks in Japan (Sadly, not a foot was set inside this one… How regretful!), the PIEE staff treated us all to a traditional Japanese bento lunch at a small restaurant in the mall. The place had a great atmosphere, and we split up into groups and got our own little rooms to eat in. The food was probably great, but I couldn’t really tell because my appetite may as well have not existed at that point. Highlights of the lunch were drinking coffee whitener (Don’t ask) and poking/prodding at unknown foods. Always fun.

After our small lunch, we were given some free time to wander the shops and do whatever buying we wanted. My first observation; Japanese malls are so much better than those back in Brisbane. There were so many things just calling out to be bought, but I held back and ended up buying a CD single from a CD shop in the center (Flavor Of Life by 宇多田ヒカル for the curious). Highlights of the wandering with the other Australian students include a psychotic mouse in a pet store that kept running backwards and forwards in its cage. Craig ended up taking a short video of it – I think it’s one of those “had-to-be-there” kind of moments.

After this we got assigned our rooms (I was sharing with Alistair and Craig) and went back to the hotel to check-in, grab our keys and head up to clean ourselves up for the first time in over a day! One of the worst bathrooms ever; I’m not too keen on hotel bathrooms, but I must say one of the most relieving showers ever! After we’d all taken turns at using the bathroom to fix ourselves up, it was almost time to head down to the café for dinner. We’d all chosen our meals earlier in the day and I ended up having a really delicious beef curry. Much better than the airflight dinners I’d had the night before, and by that point my appetite was coming back to me. Dinnertime was suitably awkward though, with silence coming from almost all parties as the hotel played acoustic versions of X Japan songs in the background. At this point we hadn’t really talked outside of our existing groups (ie: Australians with Australians, Thai with Thai, Finnish with Finnish… and French) so that’s probably what made it most awkward.

After dinner we went to our rooms, phoned home and went exploring for the shortest time before realising just how freezing it was outside and quickly returning to the safety of our hotel rooms and bed. Most of the night before sleeping was spent watching random Japanese television; which did not disappoint in the random department in the slightest.

And so my first day in Japan was spent. It was tiring, it was fun, but the reality still hadn’t come home yet! Whenever I took the time to think I was suddenly hit by this feeling of “Wow, I’m in Japan!” Very odd indeed, but I slept very well that night.