Details of my trip so far.

Decided to write a diary for my blog this time.  

Trying to squeeze in time to write a blog in our Japan trip can be challenging, in a good way. It has been 4 days in Japan, over 1000 pictures taken, over 30 miles walked, and many friends made. So since I haven’t been blogging, I’ll make up for 4 days-worth by writing in details of my trip. Starting with the first day~

To show you how my first day went, I have to start from the beginning- starting with the flight trip and ending with me stuffing my face with grilled meet and finally lost for 30 minutes trying to find my hotel. The day starts off with my girlfriend and another friend drove me up from Tucson all the way to Phoenix airport in the morning. We had to wake up 5:30AM to make sure I would make it to the airport at 8. I was able to make it to the airport 20 minutes till 8AM.  I say my goodbyes and soon met up with my professor (Dr. Katz), Aubrey who I just met and works at the UA, and 8 other students from different classes. There we went to LAX and then hopped on the Japanese Airlines where we got comfy and watched movies/slept for the next 12 or so hours, of those 12 hours I got only a few hours of sleep in hopes of just crashing when I get to our hotel in Japan.  It was a nice flight with meals, snacks, and signature kiwi drinks, so I was pleasantly surprised. After 12 hours I felt anxious to get off. After landing in Japan, we were happily welcomed by Nakagawa-sensei. It started off as a normal day landing into the airport with lots of preparations, getting our mobile wifi, meeting up with another group of students as they took a different trip than ours, and getting our train pass and such it was a lot of prep work but everyone we talked to have been really helpful. From the station, we would have to ride by bus to a ferry ship and then drive again to our hotel, it was quite the trip from the airport. Nakagawa-sensei took us from the airport to the ferry where we crossed to the next island. It started to rain like no other as we entered the ferry. From the ferry ride, we could see the beautiful scenery with the lights shining onto the water at night. In no time, we made it to the next island where we met Sho-sensei and other faculty member from Kobe Gakuan University (KGU) for the first time. They were kind enough to wait for us at the end of the ferry with their cars parked to helped transport many of our luggages back to the hotel, note that this was already getting late and heavy rain. So after all that – we finally made it to our hotel! We even met up with the remainder of the other students who already flew in a couple days ahead of us to enjoy Japan. So I’m back at the hotel and took some time to learn how to use the Japanese toilet and shower/bathing rooms. It was then that my friend who I am rooming with wanted to go out and treat us to Yakitori – I quickly knew that my day won’t end here and couldn’t resist the temptation of exploring and eating something delicious. My roommate showed us how to get to the train station from our hotel, a short walk but one that I would quickly learn at the end of the night. It was at first a confusing train system where I had to purchase a round ticket but luckily my friends directed me most of the way. We went to downtown Kobe which is at Sanomiya station. It was livelier than I had expected in Sanomiya with lights all over ready for the night life in the city. I quickly lost my surrounding as I was so focused in taking photos after photos. After a winding trip, we ended up at a yakitori restaurant. This was my first experience at eating in a restaurant in Japan, and one that I am really happy with to try with friends. We tried from chicken, to liver, and even to chicken heart (it’s delicious, trust me). The flavor was so rich and we had enough to share around our table so all us had a chance to taste one of each type of meat. We finished up shortly as we had to catch the train back to the hotel as all trains cease to work after midnight. It was there that most of the group decided they wanted to sing karaoke throughout the night, sadly I had little strength remaining from this long day and had to decline. My friends were kind of enough to walk with me to the station before we separate. With directions given, I navigated the train system and back to the train station near our hotel. I was ready to pass out when I realize that I am in the wrong block. Luckily there were a few convenience markets still opened and I was able to ask them directions to the hotel (simply by showing them my key with the hotel’s name) they pointed to the general direction and there I wandered through out the well-lit block for the next 20 minutes. To my surprise, my hotel was very close and I have been a street or two away the whole time! Well my day finally ends with another shower and me crashing for the night to get well rested for our greetings on Saturday!

Well that was just day one, a windy post but I hope you enjoy reading it. I’ll post day 2 and so forth in my upcoming posts when I get a chance. As you can see, we are on our feet again and preparing for our trip to the Onsen (day 5) while I type this. So far it has been a great experience and I haven’t even talked about the other days yet! ~will update soon with day 2 once I find more time.