Day 1: Plane Rides and Japan

Awakening at 2:30 a.m. is never good, especially if you've only been asleep for 2 hours before that.  But, as can be expected, that was my situation on Tuesday, June 24, 2008.  A quick shower, realization that I had no a-shirt for the day, and managing to get to Detroit Metro Airport an hour or two early followed, as did several plane rides, one of them the longest I've ever been on, clocking in at just over 10 hours.  Instead of flying directly from San Francisco to Nagoya, we took a "great circle" route, and pretty much just flew north along the coast of North America, and then down the coast, southwardly, of Asia.

After landing and getting through customs, even using a bit of Japanese there, I came to the realization that I had to get to the bus and carry around 1) a backpack that was stuffed full of flashcards and electronic entertainment devices, 2) a computer bag full of computer and power cords for the previously mentioned electronic devices, 3) a 42 pound garment bag stuffed to the brim with clothing and shoes, and a lighter (but not appreciably), smaller, blue bag with food, towels, and a rice cooker.  I must have been around the same places of the airport 2 or 3 times looking for the "access plaza" to get to the buses, which weren't even numbered how I was informed that they would be (i.e. I was told to take the #5 bus, but correctly picked the #4, which got me to where I needed to be).  Also, on the bus I met another person from UC who is doing the same program I am.  Cool.

So, my camera battery wasn't that full for the bus ride, and as a result my pictures in Japan so far are sparse and sort of boring.  I'll get more tomorrow though, as I now have more than one memory card and some time to walk around the area.  Also, I'll hopefully be going up to a department store to get this electronic kanji dictionary program for my DS.

Dinner tonight was tasty, economical, and took place at a restaurant called びっくりドンキー (if the letter "i" has the long "e" sound, and if you read a double consonant as a slight pause followed by that consonant, that would be read as "bi-kku-ri donkey", or in English, "the amazed/surprised donkey") (I'm ready and willing to find plenty of that around here), but the cheeseburger steak for $6.50 can't be beat.  Also, "The Daiso"/百円（ひゃくえん) (pronounced hya-ku en, meaning 100 yen, or more colloquially, the dollar store) is close and full of great products, though I'm putting the food off limits from me, at least for now.

There's not really a whole lot more I can elaborate about, but there are a few small points of interest: we drove through Toyota city (which, by the way, is one of Detroit's "sister cities") on the way to the train station) and I got a few pictures there; I saw at least one karaoke bar, though would like to try out one around here; my Japanese has been probably "passable" for a foreigner never having been here, but that's why I'm here (to improve it) (and make cultural learnings).

So, I'll leave you with a picture and a short bit about it.

This is "Hello Kitty", fairly well known to anybody in the U.S. who looks at toy magazines, but is apparently a huge cultural icon over here (heck, you can find anything (I'm not joking, ask me about it) with her visage smeared across it over here).  Less than 20 minutes from being in the airport, I came across this sign, and just had to take a picture of it.  I'll attempt for a better picture and blurb next time though.