I arrived with the rest of the Japan Study group at Narita airport in Tokyo on September 13. It was almost surreal arriving, because I had just spent 10ish hours on a cramped, hot airplane, and arrived in a humid, crowded airport a day later than when I had left America. I met most of the people in my group, only some people were caught in Chicago during some freak rainstorm. After stumbling around the airport for a while in some sort of daze, my group finally left for the dorm we would be staying at at the equivalent of 2 am America time.
The dorms were interesting... I assume they are normally used for business men who are doing business away from home. Each room had its own bathroom and was really nicely organized (Japanese people have a much better realization of space utilization than Americans do...) My group and I then went through orientation, meeting some volunteer Japanese students from the Rainbow club at my school, who were pretty darn awesome. Once I get my light pink rocking cell phone, I plan on getting everybody's numbers.
Orientation included introducing us to the realization that we do not know Japanese. Like at all. I realize this most when I go to the grocery store, or the mall, or basically anywhere in public. I hope eventually I will stop feeling like a 2 year old who has no grasp of language skills at all. The group liked to go out and have a good time and it was fun going to restaurants and bars just because I could :) Now orientation is over.... time for the real test, when I am not surrounded by 30 other native English speakers who I can feel foolish with and commiserate with. Will I survive? Probably. Will I embarrass myself? Definitely. Will I learn a lot about myself and cultures other than mine? I certainly hope so.
My host family rocks, by the way. They have a large house and have set no curfew for me. I am excited to stay with them. My host father speaks quite a bit of English, so I hope I don't fall back on that when I am nervous or flustered, because I want to learn as much Japanese as humanely possible.
That's all for now... more later
random thought of the day: Japanese people have the best parking skills I have ever seen. They can park cars in places I never thought possible.
5 comments:
Kerry! so glad to hear your host family's great! I'm sure that you will find many people to commiserate and laugh with you. Good luck in Tokyo!
<3 Sarah
haha I think europeans might rival the japanese with parking jobs...i've noticed that since I've been here as well :)
yeah that feeling of getting into a foreign country and realizing that you may as well not have studied the language at all for how effectively you can communicate is so wonderful. it is maybe even the best feeling. it gets way, way better though, and that part is totally awesome. at least your country is clean. come visit communist china!
that sounds great my friend! The americans are still parking the same old way, so I've noticed. I hope you find a japanese boy who is freakishly tall (aka above 5'6"), and you can tell me romantic stories in kanji. I don't really know what kanji is, but you said it a million times in middle school, so I'm trying to be smart. Keep it classy, and update often. Love and miss you!
Well sounds like you got dumped right in to Japanese society. Cause why just put a foot in when you can cannonball right in. Well I sure you are understanding more of what people are telling you then when I was in Kobe, Kyoto, and Osaka. I recommend going to Kyoto sometime very cool temples. Well I look forward to more tales of Kerry's Life: Japan Adventure.
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