I Have Arrived!

Here I am in Japan!  I left my house at about 6am on Monday morning, went to San Francisco with my family, and got on a plane.  Here they are at the airport, just before I went through security.  Ahaha what am I going to do without my brothers there.

I was afraid I'd end up nauseous, but I was actually totally fine, and I slept for most of the flight anyway.  After 11 hours (which went by way faster than I expected), I landed at Narita Airport in Tokyo.

After that, I caught my connecting flight to Nagoya.  (A bus had to take us to and from our- get this- propeller plane.  I was like WHAT IS THIS.)  So that was a short flight, then I was met by my fellow missionaries at the airport in Nagoya, where we ate dinner.  Then I said good-bye to the Stollers and I took a ferry to Tsu, my new hometown, with Becky, my roommate, and Shan, who lives in Osaka.  When we arrived, I met Carol, who I'm going to be working with along with Becky, and we had dessert.  But I was pretty sleepy, so sometime around 10 or 10:30 I finally went to bed.

Today was exciting though, because Shan, Becky, Carol and I, along with an exchange student from Malaysia and a Japanese girl who are Christians, along with two other Japanese girls who aren't Christians, went to see Audacious, a Christian praise band from England.  I liked them enough to buy one of their albums:

  They also had workshops led by the band members, so I went to one about discipling youth, which was pretty cool.  I also had my first experience at the Japanese McDonald's.  I was glad to discover that my Japanese is, in fact, good enough to at least order a teriyaki burger set, haha.  It was different, but good!  Anyway, that was lunch.  Dinner was ramen~  Which was, of course, excellent.

If you're not jealous, you should be.  Here's a couple more pictures of us at the ramen place:

From the left, Chiho (I think?), Alicia, Shan, and Becky.

Again from the left, Carol, me, Tomomi, and Miho.

All the girls I met today were super nice!  And I got a chance to use my Japanese with them, although they all speak some English.  But I can already tell that my Japanese is going to improve by being here.  Yay.  :D  I'm also gonna be taking lessons, hopefully starting soon~

Anyway, when we got back to Tsu after the concert, I went to the grocery store with Carol and Shan, where I found my first Weird Stuff in Japan gem.  Okay, I know I said I was gonna make a blog just for that, but I'm way too lazy.

I enlarged this picture just so you can read those bags.  The Tragedy of Soft Ice Cream.  Yup.  Also at the grocery store, a commercial was playing where the bananas were, which starred Shingo from SMAP with bananas all around his face and I can't really describe it well, but it was so ridiculous that I turned to Shan and said that I've barely been here for 24 hours but I already love this country.  I also bought Myojo when I went to pay for my milk and apple juice, after I realized that it had an Arashi pinup inside.  (In my defense, Shan enabled me to do it.)  And so it begins...

Anyway, my coming days and weeks will prove to be exciting, I'm sure.  Tomorrow I get to go apply (?) for my Alien Registration Card.  Yay!  And maybe run a couple of other errands too.  And on Sunday, I get to go to Kyoto!  :D :D :D  We're going to visit a church there, and then the pastor is giving us a tour, I think of places of significance to Christians, something like that.  I'm pretty psyched that I get to go to Kyoto so soon after getting here!  And then we're going someplace else next Sunday but I don't remember right now, haha.

So basically, I'm getting settled in pretty nicely.  Some things are the same (if anyone was wondering, I've only encountered Western toilets so far), some things are different (the shower, having to sort garbage, vending machines all over the place), and I'm clearly still in transition, with both yen and American money in my wallet, haha.  But perhaps thanks to all the Japanese culture I was exposed to at home, I haven't really been feeling culture shock, at least not yet.  Like, it feels like Japan, but it doesn't feel...foreign, really.  Which is good.  But one thing I really need to address...

And there's more where that came from.  I cannot even handle it, you guys.  Here's hoping I have some time tomorrow to properly unpack and get organized...

Anyway, I've been carrying my camera around, as you can see, so hopefully all of you who told me to take lots of pictures are satisfied.  I'll have to take some pictures of Becky's and my apartment soon.  It's actually really nice.  :D  And now, I think I shall sleep.  Oyasumi~!