It is almost 8 am on Friday and I am now recovered from the process of getting from Southern California to Kyoto, Japan. I left my house in Yorba Linda at 9 pm on Tuesday, landed in Seoul, Korea at 5 am on Thursday and then finally got into the Kansai International Airport in Osaka, Japan at a little before noon.
To be honest, I don't even know how long the flight was, nor do I want to take the time to figure it out. There is a 16 hour time difference so feel free to figure out how long I was in the air and then you can let me know, but I'm pretty sure that I lost a full day.
The flight was uneventful...I slept for most of it even though I meant to study Japanese. I sat next to Jeff and he taught me some key phrases and helped me understand the structure of the language. He'll say that he feels incompetent with his Japanese, but he's definitely helping me out a lot. I'm begining to understand how to structure sentences and to ask questions. The vocab is coming slowly and the literacy is lagging behind that.
I can't tell you much about the country, but the airport in Korea was pretty nice. We decided to get some McDonald's but of course, we don't speak Korean. I decided to be the bold one and went ahead and asked if the girl behind the counter spoke English. She spoke a little and we managed to order some breakfast.
The Kansai Airport was designed by Renzo Piano (an incredibly famous architect) so despite being tired and ready to be at our hotel already, we stayed for a little and looked around. Then we took a train from the airport to Kyoto. I ended up sitting by myself on the train, immediately surrounded by people who I couldn't communicate with, so I took the time to take in the architecture and landscape on our way. Unfortunately, my camera was not charged when we landed, so I will have to steal pictures of our first day in Japan from Jeff and post them later. I did some sketches and took some notes. The design of buildings here is noticeably different. there is a lot of modern influence in the buildings, but every once in a while you come across a little traditional building. It's really interesting seeing the two side by side.
We stopped somewhere (I have no idea where) and switched from the train to the subway. Let me tell you that hauling your 3 months worth of luggage up and down stairs (and a limited number of escalators) will make you want to pass out after you've been on a plane for a full day. Finally we came up to a flight of stairs that was much longer than any of us wanted it to be, and when we came up on the street we saw our hotel. Everyone was noticeably relieved.
The hotel is called The Higashiyama Sanjo Hotel, and it is about 20 feet from the subway station. Our rooms are much smaller than one would expect from a hotel in the states, and they are shared. I'm rooming with Jeff because there is an uneven number of guys and girls, and we're like siblings anyway. Even though they're small, the rooms are comfortable and we have a private bathroom, which is nice.
Jeff, Blake and I went out last night for dinner. Trying to find a restaurant was interesting because we were all pretty hungry and we don't speak Japanese. We finally settled on a place and went inside and of course, no one speaks any English. We ordered beers (biiru) and then debated what to get for about 20 minutes. When we finally decided on 3 items, we ordered by pointing at pictures and saying "ichi" which means one. The food was pretty good, but we all felt pretty dumb in terms of communication.
Being in a country where you don't speak the language is an amazing experience. First off, it can make you feel incredibly dumb, but the real point is that you start realizing how limited your world has been. We walked around the area a little bit after dinner and there is a lot of shopping and food places, but we have no idea what any of them are. I'm sure we'll start figuring it out tonight...the beginning of our first weekend in Japan.
I'm excited and ready to throw myself into learning the language. I'm going to try to write somewhat consistantly and my camera is now charged, so I will post pictures also.
Sayonara :)
No comments:
Post a Comment