Landing in Japan

Well, getting through customs and immigration and all that was slightly more nerve-wracking than getting through security in the Seattle airport, but mainly because three international flights came in at once, and students were arriving for many schools about this time of year, so there were lots of us who didn't know what we were doing. On the plane we filled out some papers declaring what we were bringing if it matched anything on their "don't bring" list and we had to declare if we were bringing in anything where limited quantities were allowed. I had none of these things, so no worries, but apparently they randomly decide to search so many people anyway and while I had nothing to hide, I really didn't want them spreading my toiletries and underwear across their table or any such thing. It was worth it to get here, but thankfully for me there was no searching and no patting down and no display of my bag of undies for all to see.

They fingerprint everyone, take a picture of your face (in which I'm sure I blinked...or had the deer in the headlights look --- at LEAST --- the lady cringed after snapping my picture, and I think this can't be good...heheh).

No pictures were allowed in the airport for some reason, and while some of my other friends could have taken some sneakily, anyway, I fall into the category of being inadvertently less than subtle about such things, so I didn't even try.

As I was told, there was a person waiting for me after I made it through all the lines of "we want to make sure you're not an angry foreigner coming to do angry things in our country." I was shown to the shuttle gate, where a new and crazed experience awaited me.

I had thought I would be scared and nervous on the planes...NOT a bit. I should have saved those feelings for the shuttle ride, but instead I had to laugh at the craziness of it. It was dark by this time, the shuttles are sort of little van things, there were about 6 other people and their international luggage in there, so we were kind of sardined, and we ZOOMED down tiny streets, alleys, and places that seemed like tiny driveways (actually some of these were MAIN roads, I found out later!) of much circling, angling, and very little room for such speeds. I was certain that we were going to rid the world of several bicyclists and pedestrians. In the end, I was the last one dropped off, and I KNOW by this time I had the look of several deer in the headlights combined, though mostly from having been awake about 23 hours at this point, and trying not to laugh at the craziness of the shuttle ride to keep from being alarmed by it instead.

It felt amazingly good to finally pull up at the apartments...