Cyborgs and Customs

So, I’m finally in Japan. The trip here was more or less uneventful. Unfortunately, the flight to Tokyo was unbearably long as I got tired pretty early on but couldn’t get more than an hour or so of sleep. It’s hard to find stuff to do for 13 hours. Also, I had to fill out a form distributed by some Japanese health ministry describing whether I had a fever in the past few days or whether I’d come in contact with any feverish or coughing people. Predictably, there were quite a few people on the plane wearing masks.

As we were coming in to land, I tried to look out the window and find something that would identify that this is actually Japan. Pretty soon I noticed that I could see people driving on the left-hand side of the road. While not a strict identifier of Japan, I thought it was kinda cool. After we landed, a flight attendant made an announcement saying that some Japanese health officials would be coming on board to collect the forms and that they would have thermal sensors to check – my half-asleep mind totally thought she was going to say “if anyone on board is a cyborg” – if anyone has a fever. There were no incidents and I got off the plane fine.

Then came customs. Lemme tell you, there’s nothing more terrifying than a Japanese customs officer wearing a surgical mask. Some customs officers are intimidating enough as is, but the mask adds another degree of intimidation. It made me feel like I was walking into a yakuza base. I had a bit of trouble communicating to the guy why I was coming to Japan, but it worked out in the end. Let it also be known that all the random Japanese people that I’ve talked to so far have defaulted to speaking to me in English. Not very good English, necessarily, but English nonetheless.

The Tokyo airport wasn’t terribly interesting. Kinda smaller than I expected. I had to take a bus from the international terminal to the domestic terminal, which I would’ve never figured out had I not asked for help. I did learn the word for “domestic”, though. Also, I totally missed the stop on the bus due to misunderstanding what the “next stop” automated recording was saying and had to wait for the bus to go around again. Luckily, my holdover in Tokyo was 3 hours, so it didn’t really matter. I did manage to get a picture of some bamboo growing outside the airport, though. I guess it makes sense that the domestic terminal is so small, though (only two gates, A & B). Japan is notably smaller than the US.

There were a bunch of rowdy college guys or something waiting to get on the same plane as me, but they calmed down/fell asleep once we got on the plane, so that was cool. (Oh right. I didn’t mention this earlier, but the flight to Tokyo was on a 747. That plane is unimaginably huge. I couldn’t even see from one end to the other from inside.) I was unconscious for most of that flight, and was kinda disappointed since that plane had a really comfortable-looking recline feature, but I didn’t get to try it out because I fell asleep before we took off and when I woke up again, I wasn’t sure if we were still on the ground or not and it turned out we were landing.

After getting off the plane, I dragged my ass to the subway. The instructions for how to get to the house I’m staying at said to buy a 540 yen ticket, which was fine except that the ticket vendors only sold up to 340. Too tired to figure out what to do, I just got a 340 and decided to pay the difference once I got where I needed to go (Susenji station). It was a bit disconcerting when some locals tried to help me out, but hadn’t actually heard of the station I was heading too. It worked out fine, though, and I just payed the extra fare when the exit turnstile refused my ticket.

After that, I used a nearby pay phone and called my host to let her know I had arrived. A few minutes later, Ms. Hatsue Aoki drove up and took me to her home. I don’t have any pictures yet, but I’ll post them when I do. I was pretty tired last night, so all I got to do last night was just shower and go to sleep.

Well, that’s all for now. I’ll probably be making a post later on tonight (currently 9:18 AM).