Travel and Orientation: day 1

Well, I've finally made it! From Phoenix to Seattle and Seattle to Osaka, my nearly 15 hours of travel are over. Thankfully, everything went pretty smoothly and I managed to arrive without issue. Sure, there was a little bit of awkwardness with bags and a few concerned customs agents (much 大丈夫,  "It's ok!" was said), but otherwise the travel was incident free.

They were showing the avengers in Japanese on the plane!

My first glimpse of 日本（Japan)!

Finally there!

And here we have the heard of 大学生(college students).

When we arrived in the Osaka airport at 4:00 PM on Tuesday members of the AKP staff where there to welcome us and we were shuffled of to a bus that took us to Kyoto, where we would be spending the next 4 days of orientation at the Kyoto Tower Hotel. We were warned ahead of time that the rooms would be small, but it also come along with the caveat "Well, it is Japan. Things are..a little squished." When we arrived, we entered into a clean, but aging hotel and one of the premier landmarks of modern Kyoto with a large white spire reaching into the air. Our group of 26 was then randomly paired in to groups of 2-3 and assigned rooms. They were small, as warned, but certainly not unbearable. And each bed came with a neatly folded yukata (a summer kimono) lying smartly on the covers. A definite plus!

The country side on the way from Osaka to Kyoto

Three beds in a room the size of your average dorm AND a full bathroom. Yeah, it was a little squished.

Bathroom, complete with funky shower and super toilet.

Super comfy yukata!

We were then left to our own devices to find dinner and my group ended up in the department store of the train stating across the street from the hotel. You might think, "Oh, department store. Like Macy's right? Nice and compact." Well, think again. This beast is 11 stories tall with the top 2 most having a variety of restaurant. I ended up at an (empty) traditional-style restaurant with two other AKP-ers and the rest of the group opted for okonomiyaki (a type of Japanese meat-pancake). Feeling like I wanted something light after a few meals of plane food, I opted for salmon fried rice. A tad on the fishy side, but good none the less. Afterwards we all headed back to the hotel and ended up crashing around 10 PM.

Can't go wring with fried rice! Note the roe.

Alex and her mapo tofu.

The next morning my whole room of three was up around 5:30 AM and as ready as we'd ever be to take on our first real day in the Old Capital. We headed out of the hotel and found breakfast at a cute パン屋 (panya, or bakery) close by. With chocolate croissants at only 178円, who could resist!?


We were expected to be at Doshisha University by 10AM which meant a collective effort to try and navigate Kyoto's public transit for the first time. Also surprisingly this went off without a hitch and we managed to make it to the room for orientation in time. For the next few hours it was information overload as we were introduced to the faculty and staff of the program and give more identification cards than could fit in a mammoth's wallet. However, we were finally given a welcome break for lunch.

The cafeteria at Doshisha was like nothing I'd ever seen before. It was small, with narrow walls and a low, white roof. The lines for food were broken up depending on the type of food you wanted: one line for noodle dishes, one for rice, and one for tonkatsu (breaded and fried meat). I decided on a bowl of kitsune udon and found my seat next to some AKP students and faculty. Another interesting thing about Doshisha's cafeteria: the only drink available is green tea, in either the hot or iced variety.

After lunch, we had to introduce ourselves and our roommates in Japanese and then we had a tutorial on how to connect to the internet at the college. I finally managed to answer that age-old question: what the heck do keyboards look like for non-roman alphabets?! After a quick tour of the AKP offices and student lounge, we were free to go on our way. I decided to do a quick self tour of the campus and headed back to the room. Just two more days of orientation and then we finally get to meet our host families!

Twenty Twenty Twenty Four Hours to Go!

I leave to spend the next 8+ months in Japan in a little less than 24 hours and, low and behold, I'm still not entirely packed. I'm mostly there, but I feel like when I do put that final item away, the entire reality of this enormous endeavor will come crashing down. Don't get me wrong, this is a trip I've been dreaming about since I was in elementary school, but it still feels a little surreal. From the moment I land in Japan everything is going to be a struggle: from trying to navigate a new city and culture to basic things like buying lunch and reading street signs. It's going to be tough and probably kinda awkward at times but I'm ready to take on the challenge. 日本に行きましょう！(Let's go to Japan!)

How do you pack for a year into three bags?!

After watching this video, I decided I might need to bring some peanut butter.

So, now that that's out of the way, what have I been doing with my last 48 hours in the country? If you answered B: A bunch of random stuff, you are correct! All summer my dad and I have been going running in the mornings as a way to get some exercise. My father is a life-long marathon runner, so it's actually been more of me huffing and panting and my father patiently coming along for the ride. And sure, the day time temperatures here might get up to 112  on an average day, but 5:00 AM is only 92゜the perfect temperature to go running (yes we're mildly crazy). So yesterday morning to put a nice bow on this summer of exercise we trekked it down to a random golf course at 4:30AM to run a lightly attended 5k (3.1 mile) race. Little did we know however that the only other people crazy enough to do a race in the summer were all crazy hardcore runners. Sadly, we got creamed as far as actual racing goes (not that I was expecting to come in first by any stretch), but I did run my best ever (and first!) 5k at 26:02 min. (8:40/mi), so I'm quite happy. I also got a new pair of shoes out of the deal!

My new running shoes. They feel like clouds! *swoon*

Recently, I've had this obsession with eating pancakes on Saturday mornings. I have no clue where it came from, but this Saturday was certainly no exception! I even called up my sister on the way home to see if she'd make them for me (I was feeling kind of entitled), but she was asleep. Sad day. However, when I got home I found that my mother had taken on the duty and the feast of pancakes began! And what a glorious feast it was.

After breakfast, because I'm a mature college student, the whole fam and I headed down to the Science Center, a hands-on science museum for children. This has been one of my favorite places for almost as long as I can remember and I even celebrated my birthday here on more than one occasion as a kid. I guess when you're a geek, it's a life-long condition.  I was hoping to go and see the exhibits that I had grown up with like the giant nose that that sneezes at you (yeah, I was a strange child...but and even stranger "adult"!), but sadly they've updated many of their exhibits to be more 'museum-y' and less of a science-themed playground. However, to my great joy, the nose was still there! They also had a few demonstrations with liquid nitrogen where the hosts would pour it on their arms or use it to destroy things (trash cans, doughnuts, etc.) Naturally, we went to every one. I'm sure we looked pretty creepy: a family with older children stalking the liquid nitrogen demonstrations, cheering gleefully every time something exploded. Even though the museum wasn't quite as I remembered, I still had a great time and even my parents, who had long ago become bored with the place, found it very interesting.

It's so...postmodern

I have one food in particular that is always a comfort food for me, and that's tuna noodle casserole. I'm not sure where this fondness comes from as I didn't start eating it until I made it for myself as a teenager, but since then it has always been the thing I eat before I leave home. My sister recently discovered a restaurant close by that serves it, so we had one of my final 'American' meals out of the house. While it couldn't compare to my wonderful home-cooked-from-a-can version, it was quite tasty. Post-dinner, Dr. Who watching commenced, but I tuned in 20 minutes late and was quite confused (darn you time differences!) So, no spoilers please!

Whovians unite!

Today will probably bring the last of my errand running, the last of my packing, and the last of my attempts to cram kanji and vocab into my unreceptive brain. As of 6:00 tomorrow morning, I hop in a plane to Seattle, and from there, Kyoto. I anticipate little sleep-getting tonight and looking forward to a fun week of jet lag to come as well as tons of other unique experiences. To anyone who didn't just go TL;DR at the top, I salute you.

I promise that this will blog will become far less text heavy soon, just hang with me! Peace out and next time, I'll be writing from Japan!