I arrived with a lot of time at LAX, but it still managed to take an hour to get through security. No surprise, I suppose. Leaving Jennifer was really hard. But we are going to talk a lot, and six months is not a long time. In the whole scheme of things, I mean. Teed stopped by to say hello (goodbye?) once more before I left. She's a TSA agent, so she goes where she wants at that zoo. The flight was fairly unremarkable. There were only a couple of things that really stood out for me. First, sitting to my left was this incredibly cute baby. She must have been six months old. She was awesome. And, you know, when you sit next to someone for twelve hours, you tend to make friends. The two seats to my right were unoccupied. Second, this:
This is the Magic I controller. For JEN - Japan Airlines Entertainment Network. This is a controller with a retractable cord that comes out of the armrest. Look at this thing! It has shoulder buttons! It's like a bad approximation of a Super Nintendo controller. It controlled the films, music and games that were available. The film selection was decent, and I didn't really check out the music much. And the games. Wow. The list included Tetrix (Tetris clone), Alien Blaster (very bad Space Invaders clone), Solitaire (like one-player Chinese Checkers), and Aces (what we call Solitaire in the US). There were a few more, but they were not worth remembering. All of the games I briefly attempted to play were horrible. Each game used exactly one button, and the directional pad. Why so many buttons then, you ask? Just in case, I guess. It was like someone hooked a Nintendo up to a 5-inch monitor, then smashed the Nintendo with a hammer. They almost played that well and looked that good. Never mind. That's not true.
I landed in Narita after the seemingly drunk pilot decided to land by smashing the airplane into the ground as hard as he could. For real. Someone near me almost fell out of their seat. Then I headed though Customs to get my bag. That went fine. Got my bag, checked into my next flight, and got on the plane to Itami in Osaka. That flight was only about an hour and thirty minutes, so it was easy. Rokuda-san picked me up from Itami, then drove me to Kamigori. That was a two hour drive. We hit up the supermarket so he could buy me some supplies for the next few days. I won't get my monthly food allowance until Tuesday. Then he dropped me off at my house. Which is enormous. I'll take some photos tomorrow.
Finally, I was able to sleep. I did not sleep at all during the trip, and I was totally wrecked last night. I went to bed around midnight. That would be 8am on Saturday morning for you Californians. That means I was up for 26 hours, and 15 of them were spent traveling. That's a lot, man.
I woke up early this morning with the intention of exploring the town and checking everything out. There were some flaws in this plan, however. It's Sunday, first of all. In Japan, not much is happening on Sunday. Especially in Kamigori. I wandered around for a while. Then I thought to myself, "Hey, Jonathan. Why don't you take a train to Himeji? it is your favorite place in Japan, and you live just 30 minutes away." Great! I'll do that. Then I realized that I had a wallet full of US Dollars. I didn't have time to exchange my money in Narita. So I happened across the local 7&i Holdings, which is just 7-11 with a different name. And, bonus, they have an ATM that accepts international cards. Minimum withdrawal: ¥10,000. That's about $100. I had no choice. Then I bought coffee and a delicious custard-filled bun for breakfast. Next stop: Himeji.
The Kamigori train station is only about ten minutes from my house, but I was not at my house. I was at 7&i. Took me nearly an hour to get there from the store. To be honest, though, I was not in a rush. And I was wandering off of the main streets quite a bit. This is what Kamigori looks like by the river:
Yes, the cherry blossoms are still out. Which is incredible. I love it. I finally made it to the train station, and Himeji. I'm tired, so I'll tell you about that tomorrow. If you want to cheat and look at the photos before I post about it, hit up my Flickr link over on the side somewhere. I'm having fun already. More to come.
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