It's half past midnight here in Tokyo and I am sat here, typing this post with the vast view of tokyo lit up to keep me company. I suppose it's time for me to go into detail about my first day. Well here it goes.
The plane was uneventful. Every now and again we hit some turbulence but that was to be expected. Each hour seemed to drag. Each minute going backwards. Lets just say I went a little crazy. Yet for the entire flight I didn't do anything. Didn't watch a movie, didn't get much sleep. To be honest I am very confused how I passed those long, monotonous hours.....
Arriving in Tokyo, it was nice to feel the heat hit you, compared to the cold blistery weather I had left behind. We went to immigration where luckily we had no problems with our volunteer visas and we went on our merry way to collect our bags.
After collecting our bags we met with Ide-san who remembered me from last time but didn't recognise me. It was hilarious watching her face have a blank look of confusion on it when I introduced myself as the past volunteer shelley. She was like 'but you have lost so much weight and you look so different how?" I have no idea. Four years is a long time though. We got sent to GPA to send our suitcases off to our placements and this is where things started to go downhill.
THe man who was dealing with our requests decided that I must be able to speak fluent Japanese. He started jibbering away, saying words like typhoon and pointing at the date. From what I gathered because of the recent typhoon that hit wakayama the delivery will be slower then normal. Instead of taking only two days it will take three. So my suitcase will not be there before me. Instead I must make do with the three outfits I brought for tokyo.
Luckily we have a washing machine in our flat so I can wash my clothes easily. Only problem was that my comfortable flat shoes was in my suitcase. Now my wedges I thought I had broken them in. I could wear them fine in England. Well after walking around shibuya, iiedabashi, the airports in thirty degree heat my feet have had it and I have another day of it tomorrow. I have big feet so it's not easy for me to find shoes that fit. It means I have to buy some mens trainers as they are the only ones that could possibly fit me. I don't want to waste the money but my feet are in such agony I won't be able to survive tomorrow, a whole day of sightseeing on painful, blistered feet. Plus I know that when I go to Nagasaki I need to go straight out to get washing powder and little things like that. Flat shoes are needed. It just makes money a bit tighter then originally planned. Great.
That's the problem. I don't know when I am going to be getting paid for my placement so as such i can't figure how much i need to save and for how long. Always helpful.
So maybe I should talk about the people. Well I am with one group of girls. One is my partner, who i get on extremely well with. The other two are partnered to work in Wakayama. Very nice girls. The others......well my mum always taught me if you have nothing nice to say then don't say anything at all. So I won't.
Well I am wide awake, Having only three hours kip and I can't even shower because we are only supposed to use it at six in the morning. There's so many of us though it's going to be a fight and there's only a flimsy curtain. I don't like that.
Well that's it for now a bit more detailed.
Speak to ya later.
