My journey here, part 1

I took care of a lot of errands today on top of relaxing a bit, and since I'm free now, I thought I'd take some time to sit down and practice my English. One of my friends remarked the other day that my spoken English has been sounding "Japanese" lately (I've personally noticed that my spelling has been getting pretty bad), and I blame it mostly on using super simple English at work to communicate with a good number of my students and coworkers. I'm allowed to use Japanese at work especially with the really young kids and teachers who don't know any English, but I'm supposed to use mostly my mother tongue while on the job. Anyway....today, I wanted to write about my actual journey to Japan a little more than a month ago. I had mentioned before in an earlier post that it was a crazy adventure in itself, so here we go!

I had booked through a travel agency back in February for a flight going from San Francisco to Hong Kong and then from Hong Kong to Japan between March 11 and March 12. I had picked this particular itinerary since a) it was pretty cheap, b) it had the least amount of layover time/flight changes for its price, and c) it flew in to Haneda Airport instead of Narita, which is much closer to the center of Tokyo. Since it was going to be my first time in Japan and because I get lost pretty easily, I didn't trust myself enough to navigate the trains. On top of that, I figured I'd be pretty tired from traveling for 14+ hours, and that the extra two hours of traveling from Narita to Tokyo would only make things worse.

My flight to Hong Kong was a red-eye leaving at midnight, meaning I had to be at the airport on March 10. I'm a very last minute kind of girl, so of course, on the evening of March 10, I still had a bit of packing and getting ready to do. Right after my family and I finally left the house at around 8:00 and were on the freeway to SFO, I realized that I had forgotten a very important document at home! Thankfully, we hadn't gotten too far, so that only set us back about 15 minutes. Upon getting to the airport, however, I encountered another setback.

I had only purchased a one way ticket to Japan. My work visa had not gotten to me yet since I was given notice that it was received by company just a week before my departure. This meant that I had to enter Japan on a tourist visa and change my visa status after my arrival. This also meant that I needed to buy a refundable return ticket somewhere [anywhere] to qualify for a 90 day tourist visa. The cheapest ticket was $2000. I only have a debit card with less money in my checking than my savings, so I couldn't buy it on my own. My dad's credit card wouldn't work either. The airline could not split the ticket price between our two cards. I felt like crying...after all this anticipation, hard work, and preparation, would I not be able to go to Japan after all? Luckily, my awesome friend Will had come to SFO to say goodbye to me. He had a working credit card, and being the punctual fellow that he is, had gotten to the airport way before I did. My knight in blue jeans! I really owe him big time for this one, haha.

After finally checking in and getting my boarding pass, I was all set and ready to go. But first, I had to say goodbye to everyone. Will had told me that his dad had driven him to the airport, so I was expecting to see him waiting around the corner in front of security. However, I was shocked to see that instead of his dad, my Friday Night Family was there instead! There are nine of us, including me and Will, that hang out every Friday night in San Francisco for drunken antics and all night [video] gaming fun times. I had thought I had said my final farewell to them when we had our last Friday night together the week prior, so you can imagine my surprise when I saw their smiling faces there at the airport! I was so touched and still a little shaken up about the whole ticket fiasco that I almost started crying. But I didn't, and we took a couple of awesome Family Fotos before parting ways.

Taped-on chap was there in spirit. He was sick at home for a couple of weeks :(

Love these guys! ♥

I said goodbye to my dad and brother, went through security quickly and easily, and found my terminal without managing to get lost. Everything was going so smoothly, and I couldn't wait to board the plane! I turned on my laptop and was about to go on Facebook to help myself relax when my best friend Audrey called my cell phone. "I don't want to alarm you or anything," she said, "But there was just a 9.0 earthquake in Japan, and I thought I should let you know..."

This has gotten rather long, so stay tuned for part two!