My Arrival

I'm here in Japan! AHHH so exciting! It is now around 7am on Tuesday, and I just woke up since my internal clock is all wonky. Everyone's still sleeping, so I thought this would be the perfect time to make my first post.

So I guess I will start from my trip over. Going through security in Sea-Tac was fine, But I forgot to take out my bag of liquids from my luggage, but the operator was some really old lady, and she couldn't have cared less. The flight from Seattle to LAX was fine, but I flew a code-share flight on Alaska Airlines when I was flying American from LAX to Narita. BIG NONO. I get into terminal 2, or whichever one it is, and my flight to Narita is in terminal 5. No problem, I think, I have a two hour layover, I just have to find the train that takes me over there. Nope, not even close. I have to go find someplace to print out my itinerary to show that I have to go to the AA terminal, and then I have to sit and wait for the "shuttle." I get to where the shuttle is, and its literally just a little shuttle bus that drives you on the runway to the other terminal. And comes at random times. I had to wait almost an hour for the shuttle to the AA terminal (I just mistyped it as shittle. I think I might keep it that way).  Oh, and did I mention that everyone that works at LAX works in SLOW MOTION.  So I am waiting for the shuttle, and I realize it is 11:10am. My plane just began boarding. By the time the shuttle drops me off, its around 11:25, and my plane is scheduled to leave at 11:40.
And here's where it gets even better. Since I flew Alaska first, they didn't check me in to my connecting flight, and I can't check in online for international flights. I had a feeling this is what happened, so I am just running to the gate, and right as I get there I hear one of the workers go "ok, we're just about ready to close up."  I literally just come up to the desk waving my passport saying "I NEED MY BOARDING PASSSS!!"  The AA employees were really nice, and since I was so late, I'm pretty sure that they gave up my reserved seat to standby people.  But that was A.OK.  Because the seat I got was still a window (though right over the wing, but I could still a little bit out), and I'm pretty sure it was in the nicer economy section, AND no one was sitting next to me. So I was able to sprawl out across two seats the whole flight, which was REALLY nice.


Arriving in Narita, it's amazing how the second you walk off the plane, all you smell is cigarettes.  Even though you can't smoke inside the terminal except for in little smoking boxes now, the carpets definitely permanently have the smell in them.

I forgot how going through customs here is a BREEZE. I got through the first one that gave me a visa in less than 3 minutes, didn't have to wait in line or anything (I filled out my forms on the plane of course, and I was one of the first off the plane). And then I got my luggage within 10 minutes, and then going through the second customs he just asks "is this all your luggage" glances at it, and then ushers you through.  But what I did find interesting was there there was a security agent just walking around with a drug sniffing dog. But, unlike, how stern TSA agents in the US are, whenever the dog would stop for a second to sniff, but then walked away, the agent would just sort of laugh and walk away with him.

Once I got out of immigration, Dorothy was waiting right outside! I exchanged my money, which made me want to cry. Last time I was here was right before the crash, so the exchange rate was about ¥120 to a dollar. Now it's ¥75 to a dollar, so I was not happy haha.

And then we started our trek home.  Dorothy helped me set up a pasmo, which is just like the ORCA card in Seattle, you load it with an amount of money, and then you just tap it as you go through the station, and it deducts your fair.
Here are some picture from the train station at Narita. These chairs were really cool, they had Kabuki faces on them

The Train station platform

The shinkansen, or Bullet train. We weren't taking that, but it pulled up at the platform next to us

It was about a two hour trip home, there is a faster way to go from Narita to Nerima-ku(the town Dorothy lives in), but it costs about ¥3000 each way, which means Dorothy would have had to pay ¥6000 to come pick me up, this way only costs about ¥1000.  We had to transfer twice, first at Ueno, and then at Ikebukuro. Ikebukuro is a really big station, and we were traveling around 7pm, right at peak time. And we were going to the suburbs, which means the train we got on was PACKED. Everyone was squishing  in, and I felt bad because I had my luggage which was taking up a lot of room. We also first transfered the to the wrong train in Ikebukuro, which was an Express train that just passes our stop. When we got off at the next stop, Dorothy just went up to the on of the train security guys and used her AMAZING(seriously omg) Japanese and explained it. He motioned for us to go up to this teller, who gave us a little ticket kind of thing so that we wouldn't have to pay our fair again. He was motioning to where we should go, and then the security guy that helped us first just said "Kochira dozou!" which is easy enough for me to understand, "Right this way". And then when we got off the elevator upstairs, there was another security guy waiting for us and helping us on our way. I was really impressed with how nice they were, I'm sure I will run into some people that are just like "oh, foreigners*rolls eyes*" But I'll just have to remember the kindness of these guys.   And thankfully the train going  the opposite direction was pretty much empty.

We got off the train in Nerima-Ku, Dorothys town. I always pictured it as living out just in the suburbs where there aren't very many businesses. But right as we got out of the station, I was met with a Mister Donuts, McDonalds and 7/11. The walk to Dorothy's house is just about 15 minutes, and it was raining. But we got there in no time. I'll show Dorothy's apartment in a later post, but it's so tiny and cute! We got home around 7:30, and Dorothy had already cooked dinner, so she just warmed it up for us. I stayed up until around 10pm, so hopefully I will get used to the time change soon.

All right, that's all so far. Today we have to go to Dorothy's school so she can sign something, and then we are going to explore around Waseda, and Shinjuku. I'm sure I'll have a lot more pictures! I'm not sure how often I'll be able to post, and I doubt they will be as indepth as this post, but we'll see!