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Main Page JASC Hawaii Kyoto pt.1 Hiroshima/Miyajima Kyoto pt.2 Sapporo Tokyo The Journey Home |
Before leaving for Japan there were a few
things I had to do. Getting my passport, and plane ticket to Hawaii was of
course important, but the semester was still underway. Finals were quickly
approaching and I wasn't able to concentrate on my classes all too well. My
Japanese teacher had also asked the class to participate in a speech contest
at Connecticut College so I had to write a speech on top of studying for
finals. The speech contest came and went, and I didn't do anything special
for it. I guess that could be why I didn't win anything there...that and my
speech was pretty horrible. Finals time came and I guess I did fairly well.
After all, I didn't fail any classes. I still had to go into NYC to get a student ID from Council Travel. I wanted to get one because of the money that it could save me on the flight to Hawaii, and save it did. Sure the plane ticket was still expensive, but the ID helped to drop the price a bit. I had sent in my passport application a little while before the end of the semester so all I had to do was wait for it to arrive. Once I had the tickets and my passport, I was ready to begin my journey into the unknown. I don't remember it clearly, but I think that my flight left around 7:00 a.m. sometime in mid-July (I'm not sure of the date, the 15th maybe). All I really remember is being so excited that I hardly slept at all. I planned to wake up around 4:00 a.m. to give myself some time to shower and munch on a bit of food, but I really couldn't eat. My mother drove me to Newark Airport that morning, and we were on the road by 5:00 a.m. or so (it's about a 1 1/2 to 2 hour drive from Bethel to the airport, depending on if you hit traffic). Luckily we didn't hit much traffic, and I got to the gate in plenty of time. All I really remember is having this surreal feeling right before I boarder the plane. However once I got to my seat and sat down that feeling went away and the feeling of an uncomfortable seat was the only thing that I felt for the next 10 hours. Oh, did I mention that I have never been fond of flying in an airplane? Well this flight sure didn't help that feeling. Aside from the occasional panic attack when there was turbulence, after sitting down in the uncomfortable seat for a while, my back was killing me and my butt had fallen asleep on several occasions. In fact I think that my ass was asleep more than I was on that flight. Of course the food was crappy, and the couple next to me was nattering away the entire time (note to self: never go on a flight to Hawaii during the summer months. There are annoying married people everywhere). Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the fact that they were married; they just talked the entire time and wouldn't leave me alone! There was an announcement that we were to be landing soon, and that uneasy feeling came over me once again. Not only was this the first time that I was going to another country, it was the first time that I had traveled beyond the east coast. Back or Next |