Let's do the Time Warp Again!

Early in the morning on Friday August 28th, I awoke with an overwhelming amount of butterflies in my stomach. In less than 24 hours, I would be in the land of bright lights and fried octopus balls. The place where all of my favorite video games and TV shows originated, and a life-sized Gundam model actually existed --- Japan.

As I sat on the plane, I had plenty of time to contemplate what I was getting myself into, and whether I would be able to contain myself and not spend my whole trip budget the first time I went into the Pokemon Center store. I didn't talk with anyone during my flights, instead I read Howl's Moving Castle and watched a few of the programs available on the screen in the seat in front of me.

When I got to Dallas, I found out I would have to run through two huge terminals to get to my next flight and I only had a little over an hour. Needless to say, I booked it as fast as possible and by the time I reached my gate was famished and a little shaky. I grabbed a McDonald's hamburger for the first time in 7 years because I knew it might be the last hamburger I could get for awhile. Of course, less than an hour after I got on the plane to Tokyo, they served our first meal. What luck.

I had hoped I would be able to sleep a little while on the long flight (almost 14 hours), but the excitement paired with the fact that due to some kind of time travel magic the sun never set for almost 24 hours kept me just a little too antsy to get comfortable. Although the flight attendants kept the window screens shut to create darkness in the plane, I could still tell that it was daylight outside and I kept peeking out to see if I could see the ocean below. It was usually just a bright light from inside a cloud.

When I got to Narita airport in Tokyo, while waiting in line to board my plane to Osaka I turned to the girl behind me to ask a question. She turned out to be Brittany from Ohio, who I quickly counted as my first friend as we rode the shuttle home from Kansai International airport together. It took a little over an hour on the bus before we got to the Seminar Houses, where I would stay for Orientation week. On the way there, Brittany and I noticed one thing: bright lights flashing EVERYWHERE. It had become night since we landed, and the pachinko parlors were sparkling their best to attract patrons. I had no idea there were so many of them.

There were a lot of us arriving at the Seminar Houses at the same time, all very tired and confused. I checked in at the front desk and met one of my roommates for the week, Asami from Kyoto, who grabbed my larger bag of luggage and asked me to take my shoes off before following her to our room, where I hoped to soon get some sleep after hours and hours of traveling and losing a day that everyone at home still had. That's right --- I was in the future. :)