Arrival...

Let me briefly explain the trip over to Japan before I explain anything else...

I woke up on the morning of the 10th at 7:45, we left for the airport around 9:00 so I could be at the airport at 10:00 for my twelve o'clock flight. I'm terrified of airplanes, more than anyone should be. I waited around for a while, met my friends who are also on the trip (but they were taking a plane one hour after me) and we hung out until I left.

I got some anti-anxiety meds so I wouldn't freak on the airplane. These don't work for me, they never do. I'd tried them one time before. The problem is, I take it and then I get curious if it's working so I imagine the scariest things ever (airplane crashes) and see if I stay scared. I got scared, oh well, I survived.

I arrived in Tokyo at 3:00 in the afternoon I was out of customs by 3:45. On the way out of the plane I met two people. A Taiwanese high school student who had been studying in America and was now meeting his family in Japan for a vacation. His name was Chein, but he told me his name was Jim. I'm pretty sure he was a criminal. Then I met a girl who was going on the Hokkaido Program. She seemed nice, a little weird. She stopped and told all of the flight attendants how much she loved the food, then told them all of the problems she had on the airplane and how they should improve flights for the future... I guess the world does need folks like these to keep things interesting.

Being a Type-B personality, I had no idea where I was meeting the HIF (Hokkaido Internation Foundation) group. The had emailed it to me, but I'm pretty sure I deleted it before I even read it. The flight-attendent-bugging-girl knew where to go though, so I was following/chatting with her. Jim/Chein had disappeared at this point, I'm guessing they busted him at customs. The girl told me she was going to exchange some money then we'll go meet the group together, so I waited for her and then she had suddenly disappeared. I had no idea where she went. So... I looked at the arrival times and saw my friends would be arriving in one hour. I wandered for an hour, I bought some food. I found Jim/Chein who had apparently made it through customs without getting busted, probably had a fake passport, hence the "Jim" pseudonym... Then HIF freaked out and made an announcement over the loud speaker and had like 8 people looking for me. They found me and said "WE WERE LOOKING FOR YOU! WE ARE HAPPY TO FIND YOU! The next bus leaves in 3 hours so you can walk around." So I went back and met my two buddies from Chicago. We made it to the hotel at about 8. We ate dinner an then passed out around 11:00.

Breakfast started at 4:30 so I woke up at 4:00 to shower. Well, I should say I was woken at 4:00. Everyone got a free wake up call at 4:00... except it wasn't really a wake up call, the TV just turned out and started beeping really really loud and a screen flashed saying (in Japanese) "GOOD MORNING! IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP!!!!!!" We took an hour bus ride to the airport, and flew to Hokkaido in a horrible horrible horrible horrible storm. I didn't get scared. I'm so proud. We landed at 8:00 and went straight to HIF and took 6 hours of placement tests then we met our host families at 5:00. I'll update you on my host family situation a little later but lets just say that the two eight-year-old twin girls are some of the most energetic people in this world. They are also hilarious.

-Mike