Oshare-Traveler: Hello Japan!

Altogether, the 12 hour flight to Japan wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I managed to watch 3 movies,

James Bond- Meh, not as good at the first
Pride and Glory- Kinda lame cop movie
Twilight- Lame three times over and worse than the book, but managed to waste 2 hours for me

Eat 2 salty and small, but actually a little tasty airplane meals, and get about 1 hour of sleep. I was too excited to sleep properly (unlike Kyle who knocked out for a combined 5 hours or so), so instead I occupied myself with watching movies, reading books, and playing pong with Kyle when he was in the realm of the conscious. After 12 hours, we began our descent through the clouds and I could see land just over the back of the wing. It was at this time that my stomach did a flip flop and I realized "Holy crap, I'm about to land in Japan".

We landed at Kansai International Airport, which is pretty sleek looking and has these amazing little luggage carts with built-in hand brakes. We managed to sneak in some pictures before the dude came over and promptly told us "Camera, dame! (Which basically translates to: Silly foreigners, didn't you see the "please don't take pictures" signs?). Made it through immigration and customs with surprising speed, and came out to find the dude from the Yasaka Taxi service waiting for me with a giant name card. Service here = awesome.

Anyway, we somehow lucked out and managed to get a whole taxi (which seats 8) to ourselves, which resulted in a nice limo like feel. The drive to Kyoto took about an hour and a half, and I saw the most massive rainbow I've ever seen in my life.

We checked in at the hotel at about 7ish and met up with the other SCTI kids to grab some food. After having a discussion at a small ramen place with the owners to see if we could fit (which ended miserably because we all apparently suck at Japanese), we moved on to another restaurant. I got herring udon (udon noodles with a fat, delicious slice of fish in it) and, of course, a cocktail. Grapefruit Chu-hi is made with Shochu (which is about 25% alcohol) and grapefruit juice, and something fizzy and is, in a word, yummy.

The day ended with me returning to the hotel where I have my own (small but still comfy) room. I watched some Japanese variety shows, played with appliances, discovered that my toilet will clean me with a little spray of water if I want it to, and finally got into bed and knocked out at 10pm. I'm on a normal sleep schedule here, as opposed to my atrocious one back home, which is why I'm up writing a blog at 7am and feeling chipper.

Anyway, we have a full day of orientation planning ahead of us, so more updates will follow at a later time.

See you all on the flip side!