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Well it started like this . . .
It was the morning of August 19, 2005. And it must have been about
5:30am when I was afoot, and out of my bed commencing to dress. Though my
grandparents and I had planned to be there (MIA) at 6:30am the latest,
much to our amaze, we made it there around 7:00am. Worried that the plane
would leave me due to checking-in at such a time, I discovered the “Self
Check-In” and made use of it. Thereafter, I said my goodbyes and shared
a few tears of joy and sorrow at Gate G11 (since my grandparents were not
allowed to go any farther). I then walked about 200 feet arriving at my
flight, Flt. 998, to
Detroit
.
There I waited about 2 hours and went off to my then-destination.
During this flight boredom and starvation tortured me. Proceeding the
approximately 3 hour-flight to Detroit, getting off was the easy part. For
I was destined to walk about a mile if not more to arrive at A56, where I
would connect to Flt. 25 to Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan. In this
airport there must have been thousands of Asians. The majority of them
being Japanese fascinated me for some reason. As well as it got to scare
me (due to the prolong fascination and the realization of how many there
really were). To make this portion of my experience short, I met up with a
an Outbound from District 6970, which I had already met prior to this day.
To me this was excellent, for I had no one that I knew to share the
extended flight with.
Nevertheless, this was the toughest part, for I was scheduled for
this 13 hour flight. A better name for this flight to
Narita
Airport
in
Tokyo
would be madness. It was so exhausting, let alone uncomfortable. The
individual seats were so petite, leaving no real room for my feet. This
plane was huge. It had all these Japanese people, my friend and I, and the
rest of the non-Japanese people packed in there like sardines. Boy did it
get hot in that plane. Well, the point is that I ate about three times and
the food was actually pretty good. Put because of my uncomforting I slept,
awoke, slept again, and awoke again, many times. Then, the moment I was
waiting for since the 6th grade when I thought-up such an
experience and a test of my abilities . . . . MY ARRIVAL IN
NARITA
AIRPORT
–
TOKYO
,
JAPAN
! ! !
As my friend and I left the
plane and entered the airport we began noticing all the Japanese all over
the place (the people and the writing). Shortly after, we commented on the
many things that fascinated us, as we laughed realizing we were now the
weird ones. As I said Sugar Honey
Ice Tea while observing. The first thing we bumped into before claiming
our luggage was immigration. Here I had my little “Japanese Moment”
with the immigration inspector, as I asked him where I would have to go to
claim my luggage, in Japanese. What’s so nice about this is that we
understood each other. After claiming my luggage aside my friend from
District 6970, she and I went our last stop before leaving the airport,
customs. The people checked our bags and we went to the arrival lobby. As
soon as we got there I saw Miki (last year inbound-girl from
Japan
), Shinji Ishii (my Japanese counselor), Oohata Koichi (President of
Japanese Rotary), and Yoshinobu Fukushima (host-father) as they held a
sign with my name and status on it. God was I glad to see Miki . . .
Nonetheless; we went off on our 2 hour drive to
Yokosuka
, Kanagawa (my first host-home out of the four) on the left side of the
road. Eating and calling my home in the U.S followed our arrival at 5-42-1
Shonan Takatori Yokosuka Kanagawa
Japan
237-0066 (my host-home address).
[And that’s all I got for right now, so keep checking because
I’ll keep writing reports as soon as I can and feel I should do so.]
Keep Safe, Don’t Drink and Drive
P.S: Much Love from here in
Japan
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