- 3:00am (PST, March 28th): Wake Up / Breakfast
- 4:00am: Drive to the Airport
- 4:55am: Say goodbye to family 🙁
- 6:00am: Fly from Medford to San Francisco
- 7:10am: Land in San Francisco
- 11:40am: Board the plane for Narita, Japan
- 3:20pm (JST, March 29th): Land in Japan
- 7:30pm: Finally escape customs and health checks
- 8:45pm: Drive from Narita to Sendai
- 10:00pm: Stop for a snack
- 2:10am: Arrive in Sendai at my apartment
- 3:55am: Climb into a new bed!
After 28 hours and 31 minutes of traveling, I finally arrived at my new home in Sendai, Japan!
I started the day (March 28th) in Medford, Oregon on a plane to San Francisco. With a 4 hour layover, I had plenty of time to give my legs some exercise before the 11 hour flight to Japan. It’s nearly impossible to be bored in an airport, and it’s clearly impossible to find cheap food in an airport. The breakfast I ate at 3:30am had worn off, so I grudgingly bought a fruit and cheese bowl and a granola bar… any guesses on how much I spent? Anyways, I boarded the plane with a rapid heartbeat and sweaty palms, but all went well. It’s very challenging to get into Japan right now, so not very many people are flying in. This meant that the plane was pretty empty and I ended up with a row to myself! Lucky me! Check out the caption on the photo above to see what I ate on the plane. I wish I could say I caught up on sleep, but I have a really hard time sleeping in strange positions, so the time I spent actually sleeping was probably under 30 minutes total. Closing my eyes and pretending to sleep was completely aggravating, so I kept myself busy(-ish) with Sudoku, movies, journaling, and good ol’ Spotify playlists. After watching Pride and Prejudice for the 382nd time, I still don’t quite understand what happened between Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham. Are you the type of person to watch new movies on a plane ride? Or do you rewatch well-loved classics? I also had to spend time filling out various COVID, embarkation, immigration, and customs forms before landing in Japan. I thought filling these out ahead of time would give me a Fast-Pass through the line after deplaning, but I was very wrong. It took about five hours to pass the health check, stand in line, verify my quarantining information, stand in another line, take a COVID test, wait for my COVID test results, and stand in another line for customs before I could finally pick up my luggages from baggage claim. How do you spell e-x-h-a-u-s-t-i-n-g?
My first order of business after retrieving my luggages was exchanging my US dollars for yen. The man at the counter was most helpful and actually gifted me a couple origami cranes he had made! I felt brave enough to say “arigato gozaimasu” for the first time… He said something in Japanese back to me and bowed a couple times, so I think it went well? With yen (and origami) in hand, I was finally ready to leave the airport. My plane landed in Narita, but my apartment is in Sendai, so I hopped on a charter bus (owned by the company for which I’m going to work) and hit the road. With two stops included, it took about five hours to get to Sendai. I thought sleep-deprivation had officially warped my brain when I saw cars driving on the left side of the road, but then I remembered I was in Japan. That will take some time to get used to…
At last we arrived in Sendai and I was dropped off at my new apartment. It was 2:30 in the morning and I had been awake for over 24 hours, but my excitement outweighed my need for sleep. It wasn’t long after I set down my backpack that I called my mom. I gave her a quick tour of my beautiful, furnished apartment and then changed into my PJs. Feeling extra EXTRA thankful for answered prayers, safe travels, WIFI, friendly strangers, and a new home <3
Oyasuminasai!
P.S. I’m writing this blog post at 12:41 in the morning because jet-lag is real, no matter how hard I tried to deny it. Wish me luck.
Melia