The Arrival

Yesterday, after an arduous 13-hour flight, I arrived at Narita airport just after 3 PM. 

My view shortly before we landed.

After going through customs and meeting up with CIEE staff, we all made our way to the hotel where we stayed for the first night. Once we got to the hotel, they gave us money for food and told us that we could go anywhere nearby if we wanted to grab something to eat. At this point I was almost too tired to move (I fell asleep on the bus ride there and was quite ready to do so again), but I went with my hotel roommate to 7-Eleven, where I was greeted by the best bread selection I have ever seen.

The first thing I ate in Japan. Nothing is more important than this bread.

Food at 7-Eleven in Japan is remarkably cheap and absolutely delicious. Everything I bought was around $1. After devouring that (and some other things), we finally went to sleep.

This was the sign in the hotel lobby. 

The next day started terribly early, as we had to wake up at 7:45 to have time for breakfast. It was fairly uneventful after that--we walked from the hotel to Sophia for the first part of orientation, got lunch at another hotel's buffet, and went back to Sophia for even more orientation. It was raining the entire time, to the point where almost everyone was completely drenched. I think I was the only person who actually brought a raincoat with them (at my mom's insistence--I give credit where credit is due!), so I was also the only person whose clothes stayed dry the entire time. Typhoon season is no joke.

Today's CIEE orientation ended with us receiving temporary IC cards (rail passes--Suica or Pasmo, depending on your route) and being taken to our accommodations. Everyone was exhausted, so we were all looking forward to actually unpacking our bags and settling down.

Speaking of which: I need to sleep, so I'll leave the story of my dorm for the next post.