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Published: April 11th 2010
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The bus
Inside the bus. Today I am going back to October 2009. October was one of the most exiting months of my life because I got to experience some first time moments, and as you already know, first experiences last a life time. It was my first time leaving my family and loved ones behind, my first time traveling as an American citizen, my first time making an international flight, my first time traveling to a different country, my first time meeting Japanese people, and my first time getting into a huge ship and performing my first Field Service, The excitement was overwhelming. I flew from my hometown to Detroit Michigan where I met another MCI engineer with whom I had to make the travel. I had not met him before and I had never been at that airport, and whoever has been there for their first time knows what a pain is to find the tunnel to the other side. After walking around for about 30 minutes I finally found the entrance, which is hidden to one side of the main corridor, I entered it with a smile on my face. The inside of the tunnel was pretty interesting to me, there are some
The road
the road to Nagasaki. stairs down which lead you to the tunnel, the inside is pretty wide it has an electric corridor band that takes you to the other side if you don't want to walk. Even though I was tired of walking I did not take that moving corridor, I was too busy looking at the walls which where being showered with changing color lights. I took my time getting to the other side since I was taking pictures and I had found that place quite relaxing. I finally got to the place where I was supposed to meet the other engineer, I did not know how he looked like but I knew where he was going to be and I imagined he would be looking for me as well. I got to the entrance of the place and dialed his phone number, soon enough his phone started ringing and to my luck he was sitting next to where I was standing. We introduced ourselves and waited for our departure at 3p.m. He told me the route of the airplane was not the same as the Equator line crosses the earth, but we would be making an arc north putting Canada and Alaska
Houses
A Japanese neighborhood on the side of the road. in our flight path. Alaska is one of the most beautiful states from the US, for this reason, it is in "my places I will some day visit list". We crossed 40,000 feet above one of my dream places, so, you can imagine how excited I was to look out the window to see the mountain tops full of snow. My excitement was cut short when the flight attendant came to me and said "Sr. please put down you curtain". I was mad for this but being the gentleman as I am, I complied, and anyway, not being able to see what I wanted just made stronger my desire of visiting there some day.
The traveling was interesting, we left at 3pm during day light, and it never went dark even after 9 o'clock p.m. The hours kept passing by and the sun was still with us just outside the window. We arrived at Tokyo Narita airport around 5p.m the next day after we left.
As soon as I stepped out of the airplane my perspective of the world change, in front of me there was people I had only seen in on TV. There were some beautiful Japanese girls,
A tractor trailer
One of the few big cars on the Japanese roads with a Shell building in the background. airport employees, greeting us at the gates. We walked to Customs and Immigration where we spent about 15 minutes in line. My fellow engineer was a little bit desperate since he hadn't had a smoke in 14 hours, so after getting out we walked straight to a smoking area, after that, we took a taxi to Haneda airport to continue our journey in a domestic flight..
I was enjoying everything about the new world, from the looks of the people to the way they behave. I found very interesting how the employees bow when they greet you, how they pause whatever they are doing to help you when you ask a question even if they don't understand your language.
Very soon we were in our flight from Haneda to Nagasaki. When we arrived it was still daylight, and we had just enough time to make some currency exchange and buy our bus ticket to the place we were going. We boarded the bus which was there exactly at the time it was scheduled and left exactly within the minute it was supposed to. The inside of the bus was really clean and very well taken care of. The bus takes
Building
An interesting building, about 2 hours from the NGS airport to our destination. While on the bus I finally started feeling tired and sleepy so I started snoozing and saying yes with my head from time to time (nodding). We were very tired, sleepy and hungry when we arrived at Nagasaki around 10 p.m. We exited the bus at our stop and since it was dark we could not tell were we were, I would not know the place even during the day anyway. We stayed on the side of the street for a little while until a taxi picked us up. The driver did not speak any English but when he heard the "Victoria Inn" he knew exactly what we where talking about. He made a quick u turn on the street and drove for about two minutes, including a stop light, and put us in front of our hotel. I laugh every time I think about this time, we could have walked. I was so happy we finally had arrived. I could finally take a good shower and go to bed trying not to think that early the next morning I had to start my job.
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