March 25-Arrival
As I write this, I’m lying on my bed in the Holiday Inn Tobu Narita, a pleasant, yet modest establishment about 5 minutes by bus from Narita Airport. Yes…I’m finally here. To tell you the truth, it’s quite hard to believe and it definitely hasn’t hit me yet. I wonder when I’ll realize that I’m finally in Japan at the beginning of my four month Japan experience that I’ve been thinking about and waiting for for about 18 months. I hope reality hits soon so I can start enjoying myself. To tell you the truth, I’m not as excited or wacky and giddy as I imagined I would be. I’m not really sure why. Maybe it has to do with all the trouble and trials I had to go through to get here. Or maybe it’s hard to be gleeful when it seems that I’ve hurt so many people, or at least caused them heartache, by leaving. Well, I’ve tried many times to explain my reasons for coming here, so I won’t get into it now. Right now I’m just going to tell you about my trip coming here.
I got up this morning at 6:15, took a shower, and headed off to JFK with Mom and Dad. I was rather worried along the way because we ran into a lot of traffic on Staten Island. There really was no reason for the delay…it was just…Staten Island. I think that’s reason enough. That place is like the Bermuda Triangle. Anyway, we got to JFK with plenty of time to spare. There was no line at check-in so that went fast. I ate two slices of pizza for breakfast at the food court with some pink lemonade. Then after a quick goodbye from Mom and Dad (they didn’t get too mushy or silly so that was nice) I went off down the concourse towards my gate. I waited for about an hour or so and we boarded the plane.
Even though we took off 20 minutes late, we still arrived at the gate in Tokyo exactly on schedule. The flight time was 13 hours 32 minutes. It really wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. How did I spend my time? Well, I ate a couple of meals that were decent, I read my Sydney Sheldon book for a few hours intermittently (that book isn’t really going anywhere and I’m rather disappointed), I took a few naps that ranged from 15 minutes to over an hour…I think…I don’t know for sure because I was asleep at the time. I watched Die Another Day, which was entertaining, but the plot was absolutely ridiculous!!! Anyway, it never got really bad during the flight. I never got those homicidal fantasies or any other twisted thoughts. So that was good. Wow…when I was coming back from Australia a couple years ago…that was bad…really bad. That’s another story though. Oh! I also read all the plane notes I got. They were quite entertaining, so I thank all of you, from whom I received notes, for the entertainment and kind words. Once I got off the plane, things went much more smoothly than I thought they would. The line at immigration was non-existent; my bags came off the carousel expeditiously, I found the bag delivery place easily…and then I ran into a problem. I tried to pay for the bag service with my credit card, but it was rejected. So that is cause for concern because I intend to pay for several hundred dollars of my expenses with that card. We’ll see what we can do… Anyway, I exchanged some money, since I had no yen, I went outside to get the bus to the hotel…having to wait only 4 minutes. And 10 minutes later I had checked into the hotel and was headed up to my room.
So here I am now. It’s 6:37pm local time, 4:37am in good old NJ. I had a cup of coffee on the plane and the caffeine hit my bloodstream just as I started talking to the guy at the bag service center and all my words were slurred and my heart-rate was through the roof and I got really paranoid and panicky. Hehhehehe…ok, no more coffee for me. I’m still feeling funky from the coffee so I’m not so hungry. Maybe I’ll do some jumping jacks or pass out. I’m not so tired. Anyway, tomorrow I’m going to head into Tokyo and check into my hotel in Shinjuku. If you’re lucky, you’ll get another journal entry soon!
-Maikeru