I'm here in Tokyo!

Hey everybody. So, here I am, in Tokyo, writing my first blog ever!

For those of you who may not know, the mere fact that I am here is a miracle in itself. I shall explain.

I moved out of my condo the day before I needed to head out to California for briefing (Getting to know all the people going as well, getting to know the customs, etc). I decided to pack for myself. I thought I had everything I needed, and then I left for Costa Mesa, Ca the next day.

Halfway there, Amy asked me if I had my passport. Which made me realize I had forgotten to pack it. After panicked consideration, we decided to have the passport shipped through overnight mail to a house of one of the directors of the trip that lived nearby. This was mainly because turning back and getting it would mean I would not arrive in CA until about midnight, and I did not have enough sleep for that to be a safe journey.

So I got to briefing and got to know my team. I later found out that the passport was given to the post office fifteen minutes too late, so the passport would arrive on Thursday, instead of Wednesday (This happened on Tuesday, in case you hadn't figured it out) since we do not leave until Friday morning, we figured that would not have been too much of a problem.

We thought wrong. Turns out, on Thursday, the postman delivered it...but NOT to the place it was addressed to go (the house of the director). Meaning that my passport was somewhere, lost in Costa Mesa. The director checked with all her neighbors and even several other streets that had houses with the same # as hers. It was no where to be found. Since the postman was in his first week of work, we had not filed his home phone number with the post office, so we could not contact him until 9 AM the next morning...even though we leave for the airport at 8 AM. So the only plan was to leave for the airport as scheduled and pray to God that it showed up before I had to board. We were faced with the harsh reality that I may have to be left behind.

But, everyone's prayers paid off when a neighbor of the director found my passport at their residence, ONE HOUR before we leave for the airport. Talk about close calls!

After that, it was a smooth ride to Tokyo. Each seat had a TV in the headrest, so each person could watch their own movie that they picked, and even had a selection of video games to choose from. Several people even played multiplayer against one another.

After we landed, we were quarantined since Japan is trying very hard to keep swine flu out. (Literally 1/2 of all people I see on the street are wearing little hospital masks over their face to) Luckily, the quarantine was only about 15 minutes and consisted of government officials walking back and forth through the aisles of the plane.

After that, it was just 3 short train rides until we reached Koenji (the prefecture of Tokyo that we are residing in) we had a short little orientation before we all crashed and fell asleep. We were all incredibly exhausted and several went to bed sweaty (it was quite humid when we got here) and tired, but were too wiped out to care.

The following morning (after a breakfast that was provided and several well-deserved showers) my and my roommates, Josh, Tim and Kylan went walking around the town, until we had to meet up with our team at 11. After that, me and Tim went to this restaurant we noticed earlier and got some curry. Which was difficult since the only english the woman knew (this was a nice little old mom and pop place) was "I do not speak english". So, since the menus were all in Japanese, we were stuck. Luckily, many Japanese restaurants will have window displays of the food and prices (kind of like what you would see in a clothing store, but they have plastic models of the food) and we led her outside and pointed at what we wanted.

The curry was AMAZING! It was probably the best curry I have ever had. The funny thing is though, it might have been store bought. I do not know for sure, but across the street was a general store. My roommates and I went through the store earlier that day, deciding ahead of time what we wanted to buy. We went though an entire row of curry. So, right after we ordered, the woman who took our order left the restaurant and came back with a box of food. I did not get a look at the front of the box, but it was about the same size and color that the curry boxes looked like. Good news is, that if it WAS store bought, i could get a couple boxes and make some for myself.

Well, that is all for stories. I have some pictures I want to upload, but my battery is ablout to die. So next post will hopefuly have all the pictures I have taken so far (all fifty of them!)