Arrival

I arrived a few days ago. I don't know where to begin with how strange it has been. First of all, I was exhausted when I arrived. Both of my flights were severely delayed (I guess it's good they were both delayed) so I got in later than expected. While I was at O'hare my computer started acting up - really badly. It would freeze after only a few minutes of being turned on. I started to get that sick feeling in my stomach - like my last lifeline was slipping away. I just knew it would be difficult to deal with once I got to Japan. And there was the small issue of the looming deadline of a fellowship application I was going to finish on the plane. So that was a bad start to the trip. I wanted to cry.

I took a train from the airport to meet the person appointed to meet me. One interesting thing is that the "Tokyo" airport is acutally in Narita which is about an hour or more away from Tokyo (depeding on where you are going). Anyway, I guess I packed too much. Wrangling my bags was almost impossible. Up and down escalators and in and out of trains - not fun at all. I finally met Evan (who, thankfully, I had met at when I was here for a conference in December). We then got on another train to Komagome Station - my destination station for the next three months. After hauling the bags up another escalator and across a street and down a hill we finally arrived at Weekly Mansion Komagome - home! I'm so glad Evan was there becuase check in would have been impossible without him (Evan is acutally French but he speaks Japanese very well and is married to a Japanese girl). I was so glad to find out that my room (really can't be called an apartment) was on the ground floor! So after check in I opened the door and was truly shocked at the size of my living space. I mean, I expected it to be very small but this is crazy. I'll post pictures as soon as my camera situation is fixed (more about that in a bit). I actually have a full size bed - which may be a good thing but it cuts the floor space down by a half. It's a real bed but somehow it's not elevated at all. I have a tiny fridge, a tv, a electromagnetic hot plate which I have yet to use. There is one sink that's not in the bathroom. The bathroom itself it a whole different story. It's like a self-contained, molded plasic room. Picture will be the only way to convey what it's like.

After putting my bags in the room, Evan showed took me back to the station and showed me how to get a ticket for the train to campus. Actually, that's one of the best things about where I live - I am only a minute walk from the station and only two stops from campus. It's really easy. So after my lesson, I was on my own. I put some clothes away (with only 3 hangers here it wasn't the best unpacking job) and then tried my computer again to find out that it was still not working. Then I crashed.