Konnichiwa Nihon! (Part 1)

I finally made it to Japan!!!!

And holy crap, living in Japan is SO much harder than I ever imagined it would be.

But more on that later.

So the flight from Dallas to Tokyo was meh. I sat next to this pretty hefty Japanese dude from America. 

I had a window seat though which was great because flying over Colorado and Utah, the view was GORGEOUS! I took a whole bunch of pictures, so enjoy the mountain porn :)

(I love the fog on this one!)

(Salt Lake City where I went skiing a few years back)

Okay, enough mountain pictures! 

So then we got lunch served

Isn't it cute? Sorry if, like my dad, you hate seeing pictures of food because there's a lot more where that came from.

Anyway, when we were done eating, the stewardess came to take our trays. As she lifted mine up, she bumped it against the seat, spilling salad dressing all over the dude sitting next to me.

Awwwwkwwaaaard! He tried to get it out but it stained. I felt soooo bad even though it wasn't my fault! Yeah. And that was only 2 hours in, so we had an awkward 12 whole hours left!

For the rest of the flight I slept about 2 hours only, watched an episode of Glee (all the movies looked boring or I'd seen them already), played Sudoku on the TV, watched a weird Japanese game show, and studied a ton of kanji.

Then we finally landed at Narita in Tokyo!

And guys... I'm pretty sure no one has ever failed as much at Narita as I did.

So everything was going smoothly at first. I went to customs and got in the wrong line at first, but whatever, everyone does that. I flew through customs. It made me mad they didn't even search my stuff. I didn't have to down all my oranges on the flight over! Rrrr.

After customs, I realized I'd lost my Tokyo to Nagoya boarding pass. Freaking out, I went to the American Airlines ticket counter to see if they'd print me a new one. They told me the flight was operated by Japan Airlines so I had to go there.

So I went to the JAL ticket counter only to find it was for international flights. The flight attendant was super nice and ran me over to the domestic JAL counter, which had already closed. So she ran me downstairs. I realized why she was running. I only had thirty minutes until my flight! But whatever because all I needed was to get a new boarding pass printed right?

If only my life were ever that simple. When we got to the JAL ticket counter, they were like, "you picked up you luggage right?"

I was like, "whaaat no! I thought I'd get it I'm Nagoya." 

Nope. No one told me that I was supposed to pick it up here in Narita and recheck it. So the same flight attendant ran (yes in her high heels and everything) me over to the baggage area. Because our flight's baggage claim was already over, she took me through the back and ran to get my luggage. Meanwhile I was freaking out preparing myself for the fact that I was going to miss my flight to Nagoya.

So we ran back to the ticket counter with my luggage and she printed me a new boarding pass. Then another flight attendant full out ran with me as well to my gate. As we were running she was talking into her walkie talkie telling them to hold the plane for me lol.

We arrived at the gate 10 minutes before boarding and I was all hot and sweaty and gross. But I found my seat and was all set to go. 

The plane was really nice and spacious! While listening to the announcements (all in Japanese!), I looked down at my newly printed boarding pass only to see that I was flying to Chubu. I started freaking out again! Wtf was Chubu? I wanted to go yo Narita. They had already locked the plane door so I was stuck.

On the verge of a breakdown, I turned to the lady next to me and asked about Chubu. Yeah, turns out it's the name of the Nagoya airport. Am I an idiot or what? And then I finally saw the kanji for Nagoya on the boarding pass.

But that prompted the lady to talk to me a whole bunch about what I was doing in Japan so I got to practice my Japanese! She was sitting next to her mom. The two of them were excited by my kanji list and my Texas driver's license lol.

While we were chatting, the other people on the plane (all Japanese) started freaking out and pointing out my window. I looked and it turns out we were over Mt Fuji!! They pulled out their cameras exclaiming "Fuji san! Fuji san!"

Here's my shot:

Soooo pretty!

Anyway, when we finally got into Nagoya, we saw Nagoya port at sunset :)

I thanked the lady next to me (Makiko) for talking with me and we traded emails. She works at Nagoya University so she's pretty close by.

She and her mom ended up walking to baggage claim with me. After they left, I headed outside to see my host sister, Miyabi, waving frantically at me. She was with her mom. I bought a train ticket with them and we brought my luggage on the train. My host dad picked us up from Ichinomiya (the town they live in) station and took us home. 

I had a raging headache from lack of sleep and was exhausted. All I wanted to do was go to bed, but my host mother told me we were having dinner then.

Dinner was good! We had curry (super mild) and rice. 

It turns out my entire host family is fluent in English! Miyabi is good too. She's only 7, but she knew a ton of origami patterns so we made origami together. I thought it was funny that whenever my folds were off she'd take my paper and redo it until it was perfect!

(Our hearts we made)

Everyone was really patient with my Japanese and talked to me a lot in Japanese. They also talked among themselves in Japanese so I got good listening comprehension practice!

Yuko (my host mom) talked to me about taking the train tomorrow and gave me the wifi info. But I was too tired to use it and just went to bed.

Day 2 (part 2) coming when I wake up tomorrow morning. Too tired now...