It’s raining. As if to welcome me, the forecast in Tokyo for the next couple of days is thunderstorms.
Apart from that though, everything has gone very smoothly and I’m feeling pretty good š My dad drove me to Heathrow and I flew at 7.30pm. It’s a 12 hour flight and Japan is 8 hours ahead of British summertime so for someone like me who can’t sleep on planes this seems to be working well jet lag wise. I lost a day, as you do when traveling east, and arrived at 3.15pm local time by which time I had been awake for 24 hours. I managed to stay awake for 7 more hours and then I was tired enough to actually fall asleep at the right time and only wake up a couple of times in the night.
I have to say, the offering of films on the flight was pretty poor. After I couldn’t take any more Big Bang Theory, I was reduced to watching The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 and I must be more emotional about this whole ‘not coming home for a year thing’ than I realised because I actually teared up at one point. At the other end, I was anxious about customs. A part of me was convinced that they were going to say that there’s been a mistake and I wasn’t going to be allowed into the country after all. Some stern faced customs official was going to yell at me in Japanese I didn’t understand and order me back where I came from. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t happen. Actually the process was pretty efficient, though my broken finger held up taking my fingerprints a bit.
My boyfriend was waiting for me at arrivals, he’s been staying with his family in Saitama for a week trying to find us somewhere to live. Our romantic greeting was hindered somewhat by a boy band that I had managed not to notice were on my flight and their entourage. I have no idea who they are, but they must be fairly famous as they had quite a crowd of Japanese girls waiting for them, blocking me and my luggage trolley.
Thankfully we could get a coach from the airport to the hotel my company have put me in, as taking my two massive suitcases on the metro would have been a nightmare. It seems to be very much a ‘business hotel,’ the room is small and my luggage pretty much takes up all of the floor but it’s comfy and everything works so I’m happy. It was yummy but a bit strange eating fish and rice for breakfast, I also felt very female and gaijin amongst all the salary men having their morning coffee.
I’m chilling in my hotel now, later on I have to go into work for a meeting & then apartment hunting!
