I made it!

     Hi everyone! I wanted to update you all on my journey to Japan. Although stressful, I am finally in my bed at my university dorm, called Taishogun. 

     My first flight was 13 hours long, it was from Chicago to Tokyo. My mom somehow convinced airport security to allow my entire family to walk with me to my gate, so they all got to say bye to me right before I got onto my flight. I’m grateful they were allowed to go through security and be with me until right before I left. I had my friend Ruby with me on the flight, and we helped each other not go crazy from flying for that long. We played card games, talked and watched some movies together. 

    When we landed, we were told that we had to go through customs in the airport, and pick up and then re-check our bags. This would have been fine if our connecting flight wasn’t leaving in 2 hours. We wrongly assumed that our luggage would be taken to our next flight and that we would go through customs when we landed in Osaka. We basically ran to customs, and then waiting in (what seemed like at the time) a super long line for a long time. During our waiting time in the line, someone in front of us unfortunately had a heart attack, and airport personnel were performing CPR and shocking him with AED paddles. This was extremely upsetting and coupled with the fact that we didn’t know if we were going to miss our flight made the situation very stressful. We don’t know if he made it, they were going CPR mixed with shocks from the AED for at least 20-30 minutes before we were out of line and had gotten through customs. I’m praying for him and his family, and also praise the airport staff for working so quickly and efficiently to administer aid and still manage to keep the line in customs moving. When we arrived to re-check in our bags again we were sweaty from running through the airport with our heavy bags, and so sleep deprived we probably looked insane. We managed to make our flight because it was delayed by an hour, and after not sleeping for 15 hours straight, and it being 4 A.M. in our home country’s time, we sat down in our seats. 

After we landed we dropped off our luggage at the airport hotel and got dinner at a restaurant inside the airport. We ate Tonpei-Yaki (pork, egg, and green onion). Which was delicious! 

Our hotel was small but very nice and we were so exhausted from traveling for almost 20 hours straight that we fell asleep almost instantly. 

In the morning we got on a bus that took us to Kyoto, and then a taxi that took us to our dorm. My dorm is very nice, and everything is new and updated. I was lucky enough to be placed on the fourth floor (top floor), with a beautiful view, additionally my floor is female only. 

(View from my window)

If you got this far thanks for reading! I will post some more pictures of Kyoto as I explore it and talk about the culture. I’ll also get into how I manage to get around in a country where I don’t speak the language super well yet, and register for the things like health insurance, bank account, and registering my address at a government building.