Blog Entry--The Arrival
Blog Entry 1-The Arrival Part 1
I’ve done this pattern before more times than I can remember—arrive, feel the press of the new atmosphere, move through customs, claim bags, move on. This time however, there’s a distinct newness to the proceedings. Instead of standing with my mother and waiting for my Dad to come through foreign customs, I’m watching my bleary classmates file out of the line one by one and begin searching for their bags on the carousel. One student waves around a bag of beef jerky that seems to have appeared from nowhere—“Do I have to check this in?”
Since the timing is different, even the main hallways is familiar yet different. No Christmas decorations or cold weather wait for us, and my mother does not hustle over to get us tickets for a bus to my grandmother’s house. Instead, we are given ten minutes to refresh ourselves, get herded together for an impromptu group photo, and are led like jet-lagged ducklings to an already waiting bus just for us.
Our first photo in Japan. The suffering is thick enough to cut with a knife.
The bus trip passes in a blur of half-sleep and city lights, and soon enough we are fully roused and brought onto the campus proper. Campus mates have come to greet us in the humid heat of the night, and I’m immediately grateful to them. They are our sherpas up the enormous dotted hill that lead to our place of stay for the night, the student house. I’m more than a little winded on the walk, but I appreciate that we are able to get rooms with tatami and bedmats—they look very much what I’m used to, and seeing the other students get excited about it makes me pretty happy. The sleep, despite the humidity, is surprisingly comfortable thanks to the tatami and the ambiance of the room.
The next day is an informational one, but a little embarrassing since our quarters mean that aside from showering I have done very little personal upkeep since the plane and probably look like a right mess to our new campus mates. We get some interest and excited girls coming up to us, so that’s a good sign. The real highlight, however, comes from getting into the cafeteria and trying some of the food. Cheap, incredibly delicious, and convenient—any discontent we had experienced till then was remedied completely by the food.
Nothing like a hearty meal to fix you up!
Finally, the moment we were waiting for—the apartments. The girls managed to get a very new, very nice and very small apartment that was only about ten minutes away walking from the school. The boys, reportedly, were not so lucky and got older (but still sturdy!) apartments with pretty names like ‘River Alley’ and ‘Garden House’. We at Sun Primrose are pretty happy with our place.
On the way to our lovely house—a lovely river! A perfect set up worthy of the movies, it left us speechless for a little.
The cutest neighborhoods too. This is one of our close neighbors!
A different post will be used to show the house, but there were several things of note for when we got there:
-While our campus mates helped us with some stuff, we still had only a basic idea of how to use the laundry, microwave and heat/cooling system
-The house is small, there’s only one real bedroom—the other ‘bedroom’ is probably supposed to be a living room or dining room, a narrow hallway to get to the door, and only one sink with a mirror on it. Fine enough, except for how there are three girls getting ready at close to the same time living under one roof.
-There is a family living above us with at least 1 small child and 1 newborn infant. A good lesson in why, if we were the top floor, one should not stomp or scream in a Japanese apartment.
-We are Americans, used to conveniences like excess water and electricity consumption, Wifi and dryers. We have none of these things here, unless we get them ourselves.
-Despite the care pack that the campus has given us, we do not have enough things to live even basically. The futon are on hardwood so sleeping on just that is pretty much impossible, the toilet paper is scarce, the towels practically only good for repelling water, and no way to clean the house or dry laundry. While we were aware that we would be doing shopping over the weekend, I was not prepared for just how much would be needed…
-The comforter was feather, and at first I thought it could not be unzipped. I knew I would need to buy a new comforter the next day, since I have an allergy, but until then I had nothing to cover me and barely anything below me. I slept under my clothing that night, and piled clothing under myself to sleep on too.
The next day we all woke up sore and freezing, and new immediately what we needed to do. A list later and we were off to head into Hachioji proper, the downtown section.
To be continued…