Friday, June 1, 2007
Yesterday was an extremely long day of travel.
I woke up at 4:30 in the morning to get to the airport by 5:30 to leave on my 6:50. I hadn't been to the Sacramento airport in a while. The flight was only an hour and 20 minutes. I passed the time listening to japanese lessons on my ipod and eating my siopow.
P.S. Don't sit in front of the fire exit because your seat is non-reclining.
I came into LAX, and I haven't been there in a while. LA was overcast.
I had a ton of luggage to carry so it was kind of a hassle to get from one place or another. 4 bag s in total. One big suitcase, a medium sized one, a carry-on and a backpack.
I arrived at Tom Bradley International Airport in LA at around 8:00. Here's the international terminal. I decide to check in early, since I have nothing else to do...
Except check-in didn't open until 10:00. So I stayed in line for 2 hours.
My favorite way to pass the time:
I was a little jealous, because Executive and First Class get carpet in front of their check-in counters. Economy has a barren and cold floor.
When I finished checking in, it was about 10:15. I still had some time to kill and Brad hadn't come yet, so I got some breakfast. Notice the 3 creams and sugars. I'm too used to the sweet coffee of Starbucks. I got a #3! My greasy favorite. I was sitting in the terminal listening to music and sipping my coffee as I people watched and it was fun.
Brad finally got in at about 10:15. His phone broke right before he came, and he had just moved out of his apartment and packed the night before so he pulled an all-nighter.
By now the line was really long. It took us an hour to check in, 35 for baggage, 25 for security, and wended up at the gate at 12:42 with boarding beginning at 12:50. Perfect. When we got on the plane Brad immediately fell asleep.
Here's my tiny screen where I watched Blood Diamond, Music and Lyrics, and The Prestige.
Airplane food was Curry Rice and some pasta with shrimp. I didn't take a picture because it's too graphic to be shown in public. The flight was 11 hrs. and 22 minutes. Even though I only slept for 4 hours the night before, I only slept an hour or two on the plane.
The view landing in Narita.
The first thing I immediately noticed was how GREEN everything was. It's the time of year where everything is vibrant and all nature. We got off the plane and had to go through customs where we encountered forms in which we didn't know how to fill. 
Then we got on a bus to Tokyo. Brad was so excited by the view.
On the outskirts of Tokyo
In the heart of Tokyo
Finally through Taxi, we arrive at our hotel, the Weekly Mansions.
There were some complications checking in, but it finally worked out. We got into our room and we were both a little overwhelmed and how small it was. I don't know what we expected, but it was a lot smaller than we thought. It's pretty much like a hotel room, with an airplane bathroom with a shower. There will be pictures of the apartment later. After we put all our luggage down, we decided to explore and get dinnner.
One of Tokyo's many vending machines
We walked around until we finally settled on a place. Of course there was no English menu so we just got what the chef suggested. It was a yakiniku restaurant, which basically is meat on a stick. All different kinds, from chicken with wasabi, chicken gizzard, chicken liver, pork, veggies. It was quite good, but a little expensive and ended up being around 5600 yen. (Something like 56 dollars).
Afterwards, we went back to the apartment and I just crashed. It was already 10:00pm and that's like 6:00 in the morning for my body. I got a fairly decent night of sleep considering the beds are a little harder than I'm used to.
All in all it was quite an adventerous first day. Today is mostly going to consist of unpacking and hopefully the USC office will call us to help us get a little more acclimated.
Thanks for reading!
Leave your response