Day 3: August 19, 2009 Woke up, talked to mom a lot, Chris a little bit. Went to the DK House welcome party; ate good curry. Talked with a lot of people, made some new friends. A bunch of us decided we were gonna go get cell phones and another group decided they wanted to go to Ikebukura so we all left together. The cell phone shop was closed (it’s Silver Week apparently) so we went to Ikebukura with everyone else to see if we would have better luck. Went to Ikebukura, and there was a cell phone shop there, but it turns out that you can only buy cell phones with a one year contract, and I’m only gonna be here for a little over 4 months. So I’m gonna go look for a prepaid ... read more

Day 1: August 16-17, 2009: Left Memphis at around 9:30. It was a decent flight; took lots of pictures for Jessy because she mentioned it before I left. Arrived at O’Hare, found my gate, ate lunch, called mom, then got on the plane. I was on the end of a middle row with 5 adjacent seats, and the only other person on the row was an old man on the other end. However, this old man lifted up all the armrests on three seats, sprawled out on them, and then slept most of the trip, leaving me little more room than my own seat. So much for all the extra room… I was miserable the whole trip too, because, despite my efforts, I only slept for 30 minutes, even though I was exhausted the entire time. ... read more