"Konnichiwa" from Japan!

I haven't made a blog post for awhile, so I figured my arrival in Japan would be a decent reason (given this is the reason my blog exists). Therefore, I'll start this magical journey from the beginning: the plane. The first almost-issue came with checking my luggage. I had two suitcases, and both were just under fifty pounds. No big deal for now, but I have four months of figuring out how to not make my suitcases any heavier on the trip back...

The plans were pretty simple -- take a plane from Kansas City to San Francisco, and then have 50 minutes to make my connection to Osaka. Of course, this plan doesn't work so well when my plane out of KC is delayed over an hour. So here I am, stranded in San Francisco without my luggage or my plane to Japan. Or a place to stay, for that matter. The latter was easily remedied with a visit to the United Airlines customer service, where I received a free night at the Doubletree hotel. My luggage, on the other hand, was a much bigger issue, as it did not make it to baggage claim. Over an hour of complaining to any staff that would listen, I eventually got that, too. And then I was off to my hotel for a night of sheer boredom.

The first issue when I got settled was food. I ate at 6:00 AM, and it was now 6 PM, and I was starving. That, however, was not enough incentive to buy a $15 ham sandwich at the hotel, so I figured I'd be witty and order Chinese to be delivered to the hotel. I'd like to note here that those people at Chinese restaurants are tricky. In my attempt to save money by avoiding the hotel food, I paid $20 for some noodles and soup. Lesson learned.

So anyway, after a night of rest and Family Guy marathons, I was ready to attempt going to Japan again. Check-in went well. Security went well. Waiting for nearly four hours in the terminal went well (I wasn't going to be taking any chances this time)... All that was left was a thrilling and fun-filled twelve-hour plane ride, where I learned that I STILL cannot sleep on planes. Which left one option for entertainment -- watch "Finding Nemo" in English. Then again in Japanese. And once more in French. It was fantastic.

Once we finally arrive in Japan, I had to go through multiple security checkpoints which went primarily without any problems, though we did miss our bus by only a few minutes, which meant we had another hour to wait. During this wait, we ran into a girl who, like me, had been delayed from Kansas City and had to stay the night in San Francisco. I suppose she wasn't nearly as irate as I, since she was stuck paying for her night in the hotel. Anyway, after more waiting, we took a bus to Hirakata City, and then took a taxi to our seminar house. This little leg of our journey was a hefty $40. Finally, we arrived. Check-in didn't take too long, and we got a tour of where we would be living, and the schedule for a crazy week of orientation.

So, at this point, we had two options -- go exploring, or go to sleep. Since I had been awake for nearly twenty-four hours, I chose the latter, which means my adventures are at an end for this post.