The Journey Begins

If we are meant to learn our lessons from history, it is without question that after every journey I take, be it a holiday or a work related item, my muse stays behind to enjoy itself while I wonder why ideas don't stay with me long enough to transform them into readable posts. I suppose then it was a good idea on my part to become a temporary electronic diarist while I was there so that I could relate the things I saw and did - live.

Sunday, 4 Oct 2009
From Narita Airport to Hiratsuka, Japan

The touchdown was smooth, and despite the lack of sleep for two days running, I was still pretty upbeat. CK and I hung around the big A waiting area as we were requested to do, wondering where the hell the others were when we saw the other Malaysian from our sister company. We wanted to check out the airport while waiting for the Singaporean and the Indonesian, which we did while the girl from our sister company (who will after this be referred to as JC) offered to keep an eye on our luggage.

A few hours later and there is still no sign of the others who were supposed to be there. We were wondering where they were (rather worriedly) when the person who was supposed to meet us at the airport arrived and told us to go to the other end of the airport. After what seemed like forever, we were all gathered only to find out that the bus to take us to our dorm would only be available about 11:30 am. Some of us were there since 7 am. We finally arrived at the dorm after the long bus ride, heavy bags and all at about 2:30 pm, starving.

Anyway, the room is awesome, and thankfully I have a bathroom all to myself. I shudder at the thought of the *communal bathroom we had to use two years ago, where you had to keep an eye and a ear open for the sounds of someone walking in on you!

We were then gathered and walked together to where the convenience store was, a small place called K Mart where the starving ones bought sandwiches… it was about 3:30 pm then, and we were told to meet again for dinner at about 5:30.

The dinner was pretty good, a Japanese sit down dinner on the tatami, but we could dangle our legs down because they made it in such a way. Naturally I had forgotten what we ate, except for Kimchi, which is not even Japanese (It’s Korean), and some seaweed appetizer which was sour and can supposedly keep you in good health. That was pretty awesome, actually. The rest were the typical Japanese fare of sashimi, yakitori, and like I said, some stuff I can’t remember the names of.

After dinner some of us (unfortunately it was only us Malaysians as we hadn’t been able to fully break the ice with the rest as yet) hung out for a bit in my room, watching one of the not so new James Bond movies in Japanese. It was surreal seeing Pierce Brosnan all fluent in Japanese and all that. But we were nodding off in that half hour or so and the others proceeded to head over to their own rooms to finally catch up on our zzzz’s.

*I am truly opposed to this concept. The bathroom and the activities performed in there are supposed to private (or perhaps shared with one other person if so desired), for goodness sake!

Edit: I know I promised pictures, but the blogger picture uploader is being a major pain in the ass...