Finally made it to Japan, a bit out of chronicalogical order

Let's get the bad out of the way real quick:
1) I have an inner ear infection
2) I twisted my knee running down the stairs
3) I just realized how much more I should have studied my Japanese.

Now that the bitching is out of the way, lets get to the fun bits.

I've decided to give up on chronicalling a day by day account of Taiwan since I am a week out of date, so I'll do a summary of the best parts in the next post, right now I'm going to detail as much of my first two days of Japan as best as I can.

The flight over was incredibly bearable to start things off with. I had everything packed away an hour early and remembered everything. So no problems there. After that, we loaded up on the Honey Bus and drove for three hours to the airport. We checked our bags, neandered for an hour, and boarded our plane. All's good.
The flight was good as well. It was only three hours long and no SNAFU's. We were given a tastey meal, tv shows and movies to watch, and the flight attendant kept my whisky and coke filled at all times which made the flight infinantly better.

Here is where the real fun begins; You know how they say that Japanese hotel rooms are tiny(Who the hell are "they" anyways?)? Well, the stories are very true. I have finally found a room smaller than the GarTrane. The room has one bed, a desk, a tiny closet, and a bathroom so small that when I sit down on the toilet my knees touch the door. But I get it all to my self. ALL OF IT! Trey wasn't a bad roommate, but having a room all to yourself rocks!

After checking in we tried to go out for something to eat. The majority of the class left together to try and find some food. This didn't work too well since we were a group of 18 and the restaurants are tiny little family run stalls (Which I prefer anyways). After much bickering I decided to venture alone in the first place I found, and inside I found Megan and Hanuel, ate the food and went back to the Center to go to sleep. (Sorry if this sounds rushed but I'm tired.)

In the morning, we had breakfast and got ready for our University visit. The name of the University is Gakushuin and it is a private women's college and from my understanding, is reserved exclusively for family of the royal family and exchange students. By family, I mean anyone who is remotely related to the Japanese royal family. So I was hanging out with royalty today which was pretty cool.

I have come to the conclusion that I am studying with the whiniest group of students I have had the misfortune of being with. Seriously, for most of the trip, half of the group has eiter been intoxicated, or bitching about how Fox is always harping on everyone for not dressing appropriately or doing something stupid. The latest gripe of the group is that Fox didn't tell us to wear business casual clothing until this morning so no one was dressed appropriately. 1) He did several times the day before. 2) If I was meeting with members of the Japanese royal family, I would NOT wear khaki shorts, sandles and a pink polo shirt. That is attire appropriate for a frat party.

So after bitching, they all got changed and we braved the Japanese subway system which is much more complicated than the Taiwan subway. There are many more train lines and they crisscross often. It's not impossible to navigate, but you have to pay attention at all times.

The University itself is pretty cool. It's basically a nice college, but the whole royal family thing makes it even cooler. The first thing we did was a meet and greet with local students where two students of App State and two students of Gakushuin sit down and eat together, which turned out to be curry. I was paired up with Chad as my App buddy and we were paired with Mao and Saki. Saki was pretty shy and kept saying that her English was bad, which it wasn't of course. Compaired to my abismal Japanese, I don't know what she is complaining about. Anyways, the conversation was composed mainly of "What is your major, what year are you, have you been outside Japan?" and in between plenty of akward silence. Either way it was still fun. We exchanged email adresses, which reminds me that I need to email them back and tell them that Arianna, Danny, and their Gakusin students are planning on going somewhere on Wednesday and that we are all invited.

We then went upstairs after saying goodbye to our local students to get an orientation about the college. After that, we had some free time so I wandered around the campus for a bit. I ran into a few members of our group at the high school that was next door to the college. We ran into some of the students of the high school who giggled and pointed at us alot (again, all female school). We took some pictures with them and I bought a teddy bear with a Gakushuin shirt as a souvineer. I was hoping for something a bit more mature/less girly but they didn't have anything else besides school supplies at the store.

After that, I wandered around alone for a bit more until I made my way back to the University where I met with Megan, Arrianna, and Danny. Danny and I decided to wander around a bit together and have deep conversations about going bald, and how we think it's weird how everyone here thinks that we look like movie stars. With my tight black shirt, gold necklace, earrings, and red hair with natural bounce and volume I might be able to see that; but I seriously think that we are just foreign and exotic to the Japanese. Anyways, we walked along a new path but managed to find ourselves at the high school again, and we even met some of the girls who I took pictures with. They once again pointed and giggled at us, and motioned for us to join them ustairs. Danny and I politely declined because we know a bad situation waiting to happen when we see one.

We then met up at the Student Union where we ran into Arrianna, Megan, Emily, and one of Danny's Gakusen paired student. We took pictures together and she was really impressed with Danny's Blackberry. According to Emily, the Japanese cell phones have all the same features, but the Blackberry is considered a portable computer so I guess she thought it was neat how the computer was so small. It was really funny to see her face light up when Danny sent her an email typed on his touch screen.

We eventually made our way to the flower arranging class which is exactly what it sounds like. The class was in Japanese, but from what I can tell you just practice arranging flowers in an astectically pleasing manner by jamming the stalks of the flowers and leaves into a bed of nails. Arrianna, Megan and I volunteered to give it a try. We were given one pot to work with together, and I have to say that cutting the stalks is harder than it looks. I kept having a length of skin holding the stalk together when I tried to cut it, but I eventually managed to make a clean cut eventually. Together, we arranged it decently and after that classes were over so we went on our merry way.

We walked back to the hotel and had some downtime. I managed to have my clock set for Taiwan time still so I was late for the meeting with more students from a different University. I had just gotten out of the shower when Danny told me and so I threw some clothes on and flew down to the entrance. I jumped four steps at a time and there were alot of stairs. While doing this I managed to twist my knee. It's not too bad, I just can put my full weight on my left leg without it hurting so I have to hop up stairs ironically.

Anyways, we went to a restaurant in Tokyo with Kanji in the name so I don't actually know what it was called. But it was a nice sit down restaurant where the group of students and our group split and sat down at three separate tables. My table consited of a student named Mezumi, Emily, Josh, his girlfriend who's name I can never remember, Merideth, Taylor, Dr. Fox, and Dr. Chen. We had a real fun time and Mezumi was great at telling us what the food was and how to eat it an such.

Afterwards, the students went back to their homes and we split into groups of those who wanted to stay and shop and drink, and those who wanted to go back to the hotel. Fox, Chen, Trey, Emily, Chad and I decided to go back to the hotel. Chen, being the awsome professor that he is, took us through the most sketchy part of Tokyo you can imagine. Seriously, the streets were full of sex shops, gangsters, and what I'm very certain were both male and female prostitutes. The icing on the cake was when Chen told us that if we were alone, the gansters would literally drag you into the whorehouses and force you solicite their services, or mug you. Chen is officially the third coolest professor I have ever had. I can only imagine what we didn't get to see, which kind of makes me want to come back with a group and see what else we can find there.

Anyways, we made it back to the hotel, I typed this up, and now at 12:30 am Tokyo/12:30pm state side I'm going to bed. Good night.

finally got around to writing about day 1

Sorry for anyone who follows my blog for not updating any sooner, but I have been very busy/lazy. This will be fun to write since the lobby is filled with paint fumes and I'm getting a buzz, and later I will probably get respiratory problems and be quaranteened for Swine Flu. I'm going to try and update two or three days of traveling for the next three days until I can get caught up. So lets get started:

May 8, Departure date: Having never flown internationally before, this was quite the adventure. Number one because I had literally finished with my finals the day before, and because I was busy checking out residents and packing from the time I woke up at nine in the morning, until I left for Charlotte at three in the morning. Not having any sleep for two days made the trip all the more fun.
Most of the group left for the Charlotte Airport by bus around four in the morning and we arrived at about seven. I don't remember talking to anyone other than Trey for the most part because I didn't know anyone else yet and I don't start up conversations easily.
Arriving at Charlotte was fairly uneventful. We scanned our passports into the computer system and checked our luggage. I made the mistake of putting my laptop in my main baggage and not my carry on, so I teared up a bit when I saw the baggage handler throw my suitcase unlovenly on the conveyer belt.
We then waited a bit before boarding the plane. It was very uneventful, we got on the plane, rode it for a couple hours and got off the plane at Fort Worth Texas.
We then boarded the flight to Tokyo. This flight sucked. Not because of the food which was great actually, not because of boredom because we had in flight movies to watch and I brought a book to read, but the flight sucked because of the sheer length of the flight. 13 freaking hours of sitting in the cramped chairs. I took periodic power naps but they only did so much.
When we finally arrived at Tokyo airport, we had a couple of hours of downtime to do as we pleased, so I soaked up the new sights and sounds, speciffically some beer. The airport had beer on tap and in cans at a stall in the hallway, along with an assortment of reading materials, snack foods, and a smoking room. I thought this was pretty awsome because it shows that not every country is socially repressed about alcohol and smoking, it was perfectly cool to do it out in the open, instead of a dark room or in you room like you would have to do in America.
While waiting for the flight, I met a really cool guy named Ben who was from Nepal and had been living in Colorado for fourteen years. His English was amazing, but his accent was so thick that I had to ask him to repeat himself repeatedly and I felt like a jerk for asking. Anyways, we chatted for about half an hour before my flight left, said goodbye boarded the final flight to Taipei, Taiwan.
The flight was great, mainly because I slept through the whole thing. As soon as the plane left the runway, the only time that I was awake was when they gave us our meal, which I would have slept through if my seat had not been next to the food station where the flight attendants were fixing the meal.
When the plane landed, we had our passports stamped, got on our bus, and rode to the hotel where I crashed shortly after checking in. I'm sure that more interesting things happened during the travels, but I'm writing this four days after and I'm sure that I forgot a lot of the cool things that happened.

The worst is over

Well, my semester has officially come to a close, and suprisingly I didn't fail my RMII class like I thought that I would. I squeaked out a C+ so I'll be happy with that. Next year won't be too bad since I have gotten most of my hard classes out of the way and just fulfilling electives for the most part now.
I will no longer be employed as a Resident Assistant in less than 11 hours and will be on my way to Taiwan. As much as I have complained and bitched to people about my job, I absolutely loved every minute of it and I am so glad that I did it. I met some of the coolest people in the world, and some of the worst. Dealt with plenty of the good, and a little of the bad. Overall it was an excellent experience and I am ligitimately sad that my residents are leaving. Except for one, I'm glad he is gone and I hope bad things happen to him in this world and the next.
Packing is pretty much done. I have my suitcase packed and I'll throw everything else away when I leave. Anything that I don't have now I will hopefully be able to pick up at the airport or in Taiwan or Japan. Going to Japan has been a dream of mine since I was nine years old and opened my 3rd grade Social Studies book and landed on the Asian countries section. That is the only time I can think of where I read more than I absolutely had to for a school assignment. And stopping by Taiwan first is icing on the cake.
Ursula has emailed me back and says that she has good ideas for fun times when I arrive so I am looking forward to meeting her and Eric when I get there. I also need to email Erika for when I arrive in Japan.
I can't really think of a good segway for a closing statement so I'll just say that I can't wait until I get there :)

Finals

I hate them.