Advertisement
Apartment Nagoya
Before our first night out! Well I've finally found time and have internet at home to start my travel story.....so here we go. Megs and I arrived in Osaka on the 13th March 2008. I was SO excited to be in Japan for the first time, but extremely tired after our long flight from Brisbane, Australia. The day didn't start off as planned and all 4 of my flat mates including myself set our alarms for 4am to leave for the airport at 530am. Well that didn't quite go to plan when I had one of my friends come barging into my room at 530am yelling 'Sarah, Sarah we've got to go" I was in hysterics I couldn’t even think straight it was like a bad dream. But within 10 minutes I was dressed packed and in the car my mind stilled boggled and I was crying! I felt like I hadn’t had time to say goodbye to my friends properly before being whisked away! They weighed my luggage at the airport and it weighed in at 27kgs no excess fees - thank god! My cabin luggage was too heavy at 12kg so I had to separate it into 2 different bags which was not easy
Nagoya Castle
Under the Bonsai to carry because I had my side bag as well. I looked like crap my eyes were all red and swollen from tears and saying goodbye was so hard - but I was off on an adventure of a lifetime and I wasn’t going to miss out!
We went though customs pretty easy and Megan and I were actually confused - had we even gone through Customs? There was next to no security anywhere! We stayed in an airport hotel for our first night in Osaka before heading back to the airport the next morning to catch the Shinkensen (Bullet Train) to Nagoya. Trying to carry 27kgs on your back and 15kgs on your side is the not the easiest thing to do when you have to make your way down the street let alone making your way through 2 busy train stations and and squeezing onto a packed train with nowhere to store your luggage!!! We made a commotion and got a few laughs from fellow passengers. I ended up sitting knees in my face and feet hanging over my luggage and getting out wasn’t easy either! Lucky for us it was the last time we had to
do it! We were picked up by one of our trainers and alas our journey exploring the beautiful Japan begins.
I don't speak any Japanese, but the language barrier hasn't been too bad. There are english signs everywhere luckily and you pick up words quite easily. However as you start travelling outside of the majour cities things become a little harder! We met other fellow travelers in our apartment block Kirsty, Eric and Albert. Kirsty and Eric were from Australia too and Albert from USA. We caught the busy local trains for the first time and explored a little bit of Nagoya city. The train station was so big we got lost a few times. We managed to find an internet café which was great and emailed home. Amidst our busy training we headed to Nagashima Spaland for a well earned day of fun! We rode on the tallest and fastest rollercoaster ‘The Steel Dragon’ which I was sorry to say I could only attempt once. After that we went back to Hongo, where our training apartment was and ate at an Issakia restaurant for the first time. We tried pigs ears….not so good. Bashimi Horse - for those
Nagoya Castle
Um eating calorie FREE ice-cream of course of you who don’t know that's raw horse, and it was delicious and the fish eggs weren’t too bad either. We drank A LOT of sake and tried so many other different foods. It was definitely something we needed to do to take our minds off the next week of training.
My first day teaching was definately an experience. I had to travel a far distance to my frist school and with a map in my hands I set off! In a country where I don't speak the language I thought I was going to get lost for sure, but 2 trains a bus and 3 hours later I was there and only 5 hours early for my first lesson, which I think is safe to say was a total disater! I can only go up from here! I left home at 10am that morning and walked in my door at 1130am that night and then it was back to training 8am the next day. All I wanted to do was drink and when Megan come home we had a well deserved glass of wine and a debrief of our first teaching experiences! I think having Megan there was
Nagoya
Megs and I exploring our first night in Nagoya so good, I don't know how I would have gone doing it on my own. Walking out of that training room for the last time was the BEST feeling and definitely felt like a weight had being lifted! We celebrated by heading out for a well earned night of drinks and Karaoke! One bottle of vodka and 100’s of songs later we stumbled home and I have to say felt a little worse for ware the next morning! Next stop Morioka…
Advertisement
Tot: 0.076s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 53; dbt: 0.0404s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb