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Published: September 14th 2008
First of all I'm typing on a public computer in the international dorm here at Kumamoto Gakuen University, and the keyboard I'm using is a Japanese one, i.e., the keys are either in weird places or really, really small (the space bar is about the size of a regular shift bar, and the shift bar is the size of a letter key, way too small!) This is because my laptop is out of commission right now. Therefore, no Skype, no MSN/G-Talk/whatever for a while til I can get it fixed.
I had never been to Canada before I flew up there from Seattle on a smallish dual prop plane. John Schuldt (my mate who's here in Japan with me) and I got off of the plane after it landed and went straight to baggage claim. Our bags should have been forwarded and checked throughout all of our flights, which there were five of, but for some ridiculous reason, bags can only be checked through four flights. So the airline decided to make us get our bags in Vancouver, go through customs and then re-check our bags. Let me just say that I've had very little experience with airports, and an even smaller amount of experience with big international airports such as the one in Vancouver. John and I ran around looking for the customs place for about ten minutes, kind of worrying that we'd be too late for our next flight to Tokyo. Well, we finally found the massive line of people trying to get through customs, and unfortunately we were at the very end of that line. We stood there for about an hour and ten minutes or so, slowly shuffling forward with our rather heavy bags, seeing the same people pass by in the line, being bored and tired and kind of annoyed. We had about two hours from when we landed until our next flight took off, so we weren't that scared about missing it.
Well, that was a mistake. By the time we got through customs, found our bags and found the check in place for our flight, it was 1:15 - our flight left at 1:45. We thought we were there in time. The woman at the check in desk says to us, "Sorry, that flight stopped boarding twenty minutes ago."
Wait, what? There's still half an hour until it leaves, why in the gods names would they not let us on? The woman called the tarmac dudes and asked if we could get on. They said no.
John and I were both about to either punch this lady or sit down and cry (neither of which we did, thankfully). She said we should go talk to the ticket office and get rescheduled for a flight the next day then go find a hotel. Fine. We give up. Fuck you Air Canada for not letting us on.
We went and got another flight. Got a hotel room somewhere downtown for what I think was a reasonable price, and there was a free shuttle to and from there to and from the airport. We didn't have any Canadian money to pay for a taxi anyway, and no checks on us to write even if we did have to get a taxi. John called the hotel with his cell phone and asked them to send a shuttle - they said alright, it'll be at the international departures place in about twenty minutes. We hurried up there and started looking for the shuttle.
At this point, I hadn't slept for about two days. I wanted to be really tired when we got to Japan so I could sleep at night, ya? A little maneuver to get over jet lag quicker. Anyway, I was so tired at this point that I was definitely starting to hallucinate a little bit, starting to drift in and out of sleep on the bench I was sitting on.
Eventually we went down to where the rest of the shuttle show up and started waiting for the bastard to show up. An older kiwi woman came up to us at one point and asked if the shuttle for our hotel was coming - she was staying there too and had just called about ten minutes ago - and we said this was probably the place to get picked up (even though we had specifically said to pick us up at the international departures area). The shuttle showed up, we got in, went to the hotel and checked in. Got our shit situated in our room, blah blah blah, nothing exciting.
We asked the woman at the front desk where we could get some dinner. Mind you, we hadn't eaten a real meal since that morning at about six and had only eaten two bags of airline raisins in the time between then and now, about four in the afternoon. We were friggin' starving. The woman suggested a Greek tavern just down the road.
We found it easily enough. Pamos Greek Tavern was it's name. John and I were the only ones there other than two greek guys swearing up a storm at a table in the corner, drinking wine and vodka. We ordered food and some beer - the drinking age in Canada is 19, which means I was legally able to order a beer. It was a Becks. It was delicious. The food was probably some of the best stuff I've ever put into my stomach.
After dinner we went back to our hotel room and passed the hell out. Slept until about 11:30, got up and went to a gas station nearby to get some snacks. I saw my first Mars Bar in that gas station.
Bought stuff, went to the room, ate it while watching French TV, etc., etc. Woke up at about seven to take showers, eat a very mediocre breakfast at the hotel and catch a shuttle to the airport at nine. Our flight was to take off at 1:45 PM, so we were making damn sure we could get on the plane.
The flight over the big blue was decent. We got two meals, free beer to drink (because it was a Canadian flight the drinking age was still 19) and our own little screens on the back of the seat in front of us to watch whatever movies, TV shows or news the airline at for us, and listen to whatever music they had for us. It was pretty cool, pretty advanced. Made me feel like we were in the
future.
We landed in Osaka around four in the afternoon. Our next flight to Kumamoto was at eight so we figured we had plenty of time, but we were going to hurry anyway. We didn't want to get stuck in Osaka like we got stuck in Vancouver. We would have had a significantly more difficult time finding a place to sleep in Japan, I think. Anyway, we get off the plane and there are a few ground crew ladies there and a big board with some names on it. John's name and my name were on the list.
Uh oh. We stopped and asked the ladies what was going on. They said that we needed to transfer to another airport to catch our next flight.
May Air Canada burn in hell for eternity for not telling us that we needed to transfer to another airport. May Air Canada be raped for the rest of its life for booking flights that required a transfer.
So we get our bags, go through customs, get our pictures taken and our fingerprints scanned. Now we had a rather difficult job of finding the right shuttle to go to the right airport - the name of which I forgot almost as soon as the woman told me what it was. (I think it's Itami Airport now that I think about it.) The thing you need to realize is that we were still extremely exhausted from our flight and not sleeping much, therefore our brains were not working too well. Which means our ability to speak Japanese was very limited. We had to heavy-hand our way through the language barrier between us and the shuttle information woman, who spoke very little English, and then figure out how to use the ticket machine, then get the right tickets.
It took some quick thinking and fast feet, but we caught the earliest shuttle to the other airport. It took an hour and ten minutes to get to the other place since we had to go across the entire damn city of Osaka through heavy traffic no less, to get to Itami Airport. It was a cool ride, though. Osaka is much bigger than I had ever thought it was going to be. Once I can speak a bit more Japanese I'm going to be really excited to go there.
So we get to Itami Airport and half-jog to the check in place. Which of course is manned by only Japanese people who cannot speak English. When I gave my ticket to the lady, she tried her best to read it, but the Canadian who had written the ticket out had such horrible handwriting that this Japanese woman couldn't read it at all. (Again, Canada decides to bend us over and rape us.) So she looks at me and starts talking. Really fast. In Japanese. I recognized two words, and thank the gods that those were the two I needed to recognize. She just wanted us to write our names in English on a piece of paper. I did so, she went in a back room to probably check with someone of higher rank, then came back and gave us our boarding passes. We got through security after that with no difficulties (security in Japan is much quicker and much less painful than security in the US or Canada). We had an extra hour before our flight left, so we just chilled in the terminal watching Japanese TV - which, by the way, is ridiculous - and drinking vending machine juice.
The flight was pretty amazing. Flying at night in a densely populated place such as Japan was an awe-inspring event. All of the lights of the cities being the only things in existence other than the cabin of the plane was what I would call majestic.
We landed, got our bags and were promptly met by Chiaki Nakamura and Yoshino Hashimoto, both friends of ours. They gave us a ride to a convenience store, we bought some food, then got to the international dorm.
The dorm itself is four stories, three of which are for students. We have a midnight curfew which none of us quite understand and all of us hate. I broke it the second night I was here because I was down at a place called Jeff's World Bar downtown, drinkin' Kinky Orgasms, White Russians and shots of tequila with Rory (I forget if I introduced him - he's an Aussie that's been here since last semester and will leave after this semester). A
daigakusei (university student) visiting from Fukuoka, which is a few hours north of Kumamoto, talked with us for a while. When Rory and I were leaving after he got some worried SMS's from the dormkeeper Kame-san, which forced us to go home at that time - about 12:30 - this
daigakusei gave me her email address and asked me to keep in contact with her.
Second night in Japan and I'm already pickin' up the ladies. Bwahaha.
I don't get stared at as much as I thought I was going to. When we all go out in a group, that is us
ryuugakusei (foreign exchange uni students), we get stared at pretty hard. But when it's just two or three of you, the stares aren't that bad at all. Today a little girl, couldn't have been more than six, stood right next to me and stared right at me, her face full of joy and wonder at seeing a foreigner. I waved at her, she got a huuuuge smile on her face and waved back, then ran to her parents saying that she just met a
gaijin. It was adorable.
The weather here is actually a lot more bearable than I had thought it was going to be. It's hot and humid, yeah, but nothing that's debilitating or too uncomfortable. It rains every day, even if it's just a little shower lasting five minutes. This is the end of cicada season, so there aren't many of the bugs making a lot of noise, but there are some. I love the way they sound, all electric and gritty. I wanna catch one sometime soon...maybe tonight when we go downtown. There's a traintrack right next to the dorm so the trains wake me up at six or so in the morning - that or it's just jet lag still. I have my own balcony, which I find awesome. It's prolly three feet deep and it actually wraps around the entire outside of the building.
There're quite a few Koreans here and a few Chinese girls, all of whom can speak Japanese extremely well. There're two Brits, two Canadians (who I want to prove to me that Canada can be cool, but they don't talk much), two Texans, a girl from Vietnam and six Montanans - four from MSU, one from Carroll and one from UM. There are actually more girls than guys, but most of them are Korean and they can't really speak any English; and since I can't speak Japanese, we can't really communicate. Oh well. Hand movements and miming will be useful.
Here's my address if you wanna send me a letter or a cake.
Kumamoto Gakuen University International Residence
2-28-4 Shin-Oe
Kumamoto City 862-0972 Japan
Room 406
Love you all.
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Luci Trotter
non-member comment
Jeezus, you poor kids! The flight stuff sounds like a total disaster. But at least you made it into the country alive and didn't get eaten by the Cannibaladians! MIDNIGHT curfew for dorms? That sucks BIG time! Just bring the booze back to your rooms, problem semi-solved? XP May I just say for the millionth trillionth time that I am insanely jealous that you are in Japan while I am stuck in boring old Melbourne? 'Coz I AM!!! Make SURE you make the most of every minute or I'll be forced to trade places with you :P