I am here

I have successfully arrived in Japan.

The flight was about 12 hours from Chicago, so not too terrible. I think I slept for maybe 3 hours? I have never been good at sleeping on planes, but I tried anyway. I did watch a lot of movies, cause they had some newer ones that I like. I may have watched the new Star Trek 2 and a half times, along with 27 Dresses, X Men Origins, and Race to Witch Mountain. They also feed you A LOT on the long flights! It felt like they were just always coming by with more food. Airplane food, granted, but lots of it!

All of my bags got here and Immigration and Customs were not terrible. They did not search anything like I had expected, considering the major restrictions with meds here. I think there were just SO many of us all at once, and we all had a ton of stuff, so they may have just let it go.

We took a bus from the airport to the hotel, which took about 2 and a half hours, I think. They gave us a ton of stuff to go through and sent us to our rooms, at which point it was about 7pm. Sarah and I are in the same room in the hotel, which is nice. We went out and had some udon for dinner, those are the really super thick noodles. We attempted to get me some meds for my slight cold that I have had for a week, but then one of the JET orientation assistants told us that there are meds in the hotel for us. The drug store was funny, though, because everything had pictures, so I was looking for one with the person holding their throat or coughing. We found it too, but then we ran into the orientation assistant before I bought anything. All I ended up with from the hotel were lozenges, which were really no help. I didn't want to go too much into my symptons, because they are also scared of swine flu, and the last thing I want is to be quarantined until my random non-flu symptoms pass. I should mention that I went to the doctor in the US when I first got sick, and got a note that I do not have the flu, but I did not know how to explain that to them, so I just said I had a sore throat.

It is currently 5:51 am here (so that would be 4:51 pm yesterday in VA), and I was not so able to sleep in the hotel last night. I think we all went to bed around 9, and then I woke up at midnight and again at 3am. I have been up since 3am, at this point. I forgot how much a big time difference really affects everything. I sort of hoped that if I stayed awake until a normal time and then went to bed, I would just sleep through the night and wake up in the morning after 7 straight hours of sleep. Obviously I know better than that, but I hoped anyway. There are people who went out to bars and karaoke last night, so I am probably better off than they are. Or maybe not!

Orientation is today and tomorrow starting at 9. At least I have lots of time to get ready!

I guess that is enough for now. I will not have internet in Iiyama for at least two weeks, so this may be the last post for a while.