Japan - Part One

Traveling to Japan is long and hard. 19 hours of flight was crazy. Once we finally landed we had 2 hours of trains to take. Thankfully we figured it out and got on the right train every time. By the time we made it our last stop, it was dark and raining. We had to walk to the university and it was a guess about which direction. We saw a fairly large building and was hoping it was the school dorms. Sadly not so much. It was the hospital. Thankfully someone pointed us in the right direction and we made it to the International House at Osaka University.  Craig found the RA and after something like 30 hours of travel we finally made it to our final destination. I think it was probably the longest day I've had in a really long time. Dragging suitcases in the rain was not much fun, but all in a days work I guess.

That was Friday. Saturday required rest. It was about 10 when we finally left the apartment. We just started walking. We found a Family Mart and figured that was were a lot of the college students shopped. We kept walking and found a McDonald's. Since we didn't find a lot else, we decided to stick with something we knew. It was interesting to order since we didn't speak Japanese and no one there spoke English. Thankfully they had picture menus and we pointed to what we wanted. We left McDonald's and went to the Family Mart to grab some dinner. We did the noodles and chicken thing. They turned out to be pretty good. I also ate my dinner with chopsticks. Not as hard as I thought it was. We bummed around the apartment the rest if the day. We unpacked and took a nap. Craig got the internet up and running, so we caught up with the world. We ended up in bed around 930. I guess we were still tired. The only problem was we woke up way to early. The sun rises really early here and since we went to bed so early, we were up really early Sunday morning.

We decided to go to church on Sunday, so we mapped it out and figured out how to get there. It didn't seem to difficult. We had to take the monorail, then a train. Not too bad. We got on the monorail and got off at the right stop. Then we got on the train, but ended up on an express train the skipped the stop we needed and headed to the next station. The problem with the train was it was more local, so there wasn't an English translation for everything like on the bigger trains. Anyway, once we got to the wrong stop, we had to figure out how to get back to the right stop. After getting on the wrong train and going the wrong way once, we finally figured it out and got to the right place. After walking in the wrong direction, we finally made it to the church.

There were 4 missionaries and three of them spoke English. It was nice to see them. We made it through the Sacrament when someone came and offered to translate. That made the rest of the meeting easier. It was nice to understand what was going on. We left after Sacrament meeting and headed back to the apartment. There was a little cafe in the train station, so we grabbed a sandwich there. We stopped at the Family Mart to grab dinner and settled in at home to rest. I took a nap and ended up sleeping until after 8. We had dinner and I read till about midnight. Somehow I still managed only to sleep until 5:30 this morning. The sun just comes up to early here.

So the day is just getting started. Craig has to go sign paperwork for the apartment this morning, then we are off to to find him a phone and then a grocery store. Should be a fun day.

So far Japan has been amazing. Everyone here has been really nice. One lady even helped us find the right train. It's been an amazing experience so far.