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Nihon NewsThursday, August 9, 2001 |
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Initial Impact I've been in Japan for four days now and I'm feeling amazed, awed, humbled, scared, nervous, lost, lonely. My little tummy holds about a bajillion butterflies all fluttering feverishly. In Edmonton, my parents, my brother and three super-wonderful friends saw me off at the airport on Saturday morning. My plane arrived in Japan late on Sunday night. My (free) flight from Edmonton went to Minneapolis and then to Narita. The reason we flew backwards to Minneapolis is because we were flying Northwest and their hub for flights to Tokyo is centered in fair Minneapolis. The flight was... okay. We were delayed on the ground due to a rattling noise originating from the ceiling of the plane. The pilot did some heavy braking and turning on the tarmack in order to help the flight attendants locate the origin of the noise and then we all waited on the plane as they got some mechanics to check on it and fix it. It took over two hours to fix but it ended up being a piece of metal that had not been secured properly; nothing too serious. The side-effect, though, was that it made the flight seem that much longer and we didn't get any compensation. The service wasn't all that wonderful on the plane, either. It made me miss Air Canada, even though that airline has its own set of problems. After arriving, we were quickly ushered through immigration and then customs. No thinking was involved as there always seemed to be a JET volunteer no more than 20m away to show you the way. Tokyo itself was around 24C; very pleasant and very unusual temperatures for this time of year. After an hour bus ride into Tokyo, we arrived at the the classiest hotel that I've ever stayed in, the Keio Plaza. Again, signs showed us the way. We were given the first of many papers and booklet and sent up the elevators into our rooms. After this whirlwind of activity, one of the Edmonton JETs, Amy, and I went hunting for food. After looking for the hotels cafe, we ended having a pizza on the 45 floor bar with a view of Shinjuku. It was a wonderful introduction to the city that loves neon lights. More later...
Last modified: Thursday, 13-Sep-2001 07:39:15 MDT Broken links, suggestions, problems: gen@intranet.org
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