First Japan post OMG...
Computer has sneakily found wireless network. SO NAUGHTY!
Anyway, here's the email I just sent my family before email shat itself. Copied and pasted beforehand because I am well learned in the ways of the crappy email. It explains the kind of arrival I had. Things were supposed to run smoothly, everything was organised. Land at Kansai airport> shuttle to Kyoto> hotel for the night> taxi to uni the next day. Our flight was delayed for two hours and when we finally took off there was an apology of "we hope the delay has not cause too many complications for you." Perhaps I should forward this to them and let them know exactly how many complications their delay caused.
Dear everyone,
Hello! Greetings from Japan! I am now in Kyoto in my new apartment. It is quite nice. Small but with plenty of room. I'll try to attach some photos. I've found a wireless network but connection is pretty terrible so I'm hoping this will get through. This is my gmail address, it's the only one I could get to work.
I apologise for not calling last night. I had meant to call as soon as we landed, but unfortunately for us, that was when the trouble started and I a) didn't want to worry you, and b) didn't want to wake you by the time it was all sorted out. As you know, our flight was delayed, by about two hours in the end. This meant that we didn't arrive in Japan until about 10:30. It didn't occur to us until we were on the plane that this meant we would miss our shuttle to Kyoto. We were hoping that the service would still be open and we'd be able to get to Kyoto, and then once we got there, that there would still be someone there to let us into the hotel. Unfortunately, the service was closed and there was no one about to get help from. (it was about 11 by the time we got through immigration and got our baggage. We decided that the best thing to do would be to go with steph to her hotel in Osaka and see if they'd have room for us. This meant catching a bus from the airport and then a taxi. This wsan't a huge deal, but no one taxi could fit all our luggage in so we had to split up and Steph was on her own so it was a little stressful. We all got the the hotel okay and Steph checked in but there were no rooms for Gen and I. So we ended up running around the streets of Osaka until about 2am looking for a place to stay the night. We eventually found somewhere and we all could have cried with relief, I think. I was almost resigned to catching a taxi to the train station and waiting for the first train to Kyoto the next morning. Luckily it didn't come to that. Again, sorry I didn't call, but I thought that there would be no use for all five of us to be worried.
This morning, Gen and I caught a train to Kyoto with all our luggage. There are no escalators, just stairs, and lots of them. Luckily there were usually some nice people to help us pull our luggage up the stairs otherwise we'd still be there, I think. The train was an interesting experience. Packed tight with heaps of people as well as our luggage and nowhere to hang on to. I had visions of myself falling over and taking my big suitcase with me, crushing a million tiny Japanese people as I went. It didn't help that we were being stared at constantly. I wouldn't have thought westerners were so rare in this part of Japan but apparently they are, or so it would seem.
We caught a taxi to the uni and had to wait around for our assistant students to show up (we overestimated the time it would take to get there). After that things went as smoothly as they were supposed to. I have two students looking out for me, Yuka and Erika. They are both very nice and helped me get all my luggage here and took me to the grocery shop and helped me buy all the things I'd need. Later on in the week they're going to take me to the Ward Office to organise my Alien Registration and then after that I can get a mobile phone.
Hopefully this email is readable, this is the first time I've stopped since we touched down and I'm still a bit scatty. I had high hopes of this year being quite the adventure, I just didn't realise it was going to be starting straight away like that. It may have been horrible last night but it is going to make one fantastic story later! :-) I think that if I can survive being almost stranded in a foreign country, I can cope with pretty much anything.
So far things have been crazy and not a little bit scary, but a few more things like that, and this year will have already filled its fantastic experience quota.
MISSAGE! ♥
Anyway, here's the email I just sent my family before email shat itself. Copied and pasted beforehand because I am well learned in the ways of the crappy email. It explains the kind of arrival I had. Things were supposed to run smoothly, everything was organised. Land at Kansai airport> shuttle to Kyoto> hotel for the night> taxi to uni the next day. Our flight was delayed for two hours and when we finally took off there was an apology of "we hope the delay has not cause too many complications for you." Perhaps I should forward this to them and let them know exactly how many complications their delay caused.
Dear everyone,
Hello! Greetings from Japan! I am now in Kyoto in my new apartment. It is quite nice. Small but with plenty of room. I'll try to attach some photos. I've found a wireless network but connection is pretty terrible so I'm hoping this will get through. This is my gmail address, it's the only one I could get to work.
I apologise for not calling last night. I had meant to call as soon as we landed, but unfortunately for us, that was when the trouble started and I a) didn't want to worry you, and b) didn't want to wake you by the time it was all sorted out. As you know, our flight was delayed, by about two hours in the end. This meant that we didn't arrive in Japan until about 10:30. It didn't occur to us until we were on the plane that this meant we would miss our shuttle to Kyoto. We were hoping that the service would still be open and we'd be able to get to Kyoto, and then once we got there, that there would still be someone there to let us into the hotel. Unfortunately, the service was closed and there was no one about to get help from. (it was about 11 by the time we got through immigration and got our baggage. We decided that the best thing to do would be to go with steph to her hotel in Osaka and see if they'd have room for us. This meant catching a bus from the airport and then a taxi. This wsan't a huge deal, but no one taxi could fit all our luggage in so we had to split up and Steph was on her own so it was a little stressful. We all got the the hotel okay and Steph checked in but there were no rooms for Gen and I. So we ended up running around the streets of Osaka until about 2am looking for a place to stay the night. We eventually found somewhere and we all could have cried with relief, I think. I was almost resigned to catching a taxi to the train station and waiting for the first train to Kyoto the next morning. Luckily it didn't come to that. Again, sorry I didn't call, but I thought that there would be no use for all five of us to be worried.
This morning, Gen and I caught a train to Kyoto with all our luggage. There are no escalators, just stairs, and lots of them. Luckily there were usually some nice people to help us pull our luggage up the stairs otherwise we'd still be there, I think. The train was an interesting experience. Packed tight with heaps of people as well as our luggage and nowhere to hang on to. I had visions of myself falling over and taking my big suitcase with me, crushing a million tiny Japanese people as I went. It didn't help that we were being stared at constantly. I wouldn't have thought westerners were so rare in this part of Japan but apparently they are, or so it would seem.
We caught a taxi to the uni and had to wait around for our assistant students to show up (we overestimated the time it would take to get there). After that things went as smoothly as they were supposed to. I have two students looking out for me, Yuka and Erika. They are both very nice and helped me get all my luggage here and took me to the grocery shop and helped me buy all the things I'd need. Later on in the week they're going to take me to the Ward Office to organise my Alien Registration and then after that I can get a mobile phone.
Hopefully this email is readable, this is the first time I've stopped since we touched down and I'm still a bit scatty. I had high hopes of this year being quite the adventure, I just didn't realise it was going to be starting straight away like that. It may have been horrible last night but it is going to make one fantastic story later! :-) I think that if I can survive being almost stranded in a foreign country, I can cope with pretty much anything.
So far things have been crazy and not a little bit scary, but a few more things like that, and this year will have already filled its fantastic experience quota.
MISSAGE! ♥