Arrival Photos

Arrived continued

So, after the express train we had to navigate the subway of station at the end of the express train which took us to shinjuku. It wasn't too terribly difficult, but it was a little insane because there were so many people. It was sorta like being in one of those scenes in the movies where there are just swarms of people going this way and that, and you're the one person looking around like you're in a daze, going "uhhh, so where to" haha. Anyway,we made our way up out of the subway and navigated the several blocks between there and the bus station.

The bus station was a little difficult to find because it was actually on the first floor of a large skyscraper, and we weren't really sure if that's where it was. The bus station was very clean feeling. There was a small section that had magazines and recent manga magazine releases, as well as drinks and small snacks. Across the hallway was where you actually went 30 minutes before the bus departed. The whole thing was very organized and the people there were very helpful. It gave me a chance to use some more Japanese and turns out it wasn't totally fail. We had about five hours, and a lot of us were really hungry, so I asked this one lady working at the bus station what she knew of good places to eat. At first she told me that there were some nice places upstairs, but were a bit expensive. I talked to her a bit more and asked if she knew of any cheaper places and she went out of her way to take us outside and down the block to a very delicious soba noodle shop. It was delicious, cheap and the atmosphere in the restaurant was fantastic.

Eventually everyone who was suppose to meet at the bus station for the overnight bus showed up. We also spent sometime outside during the night, and enjoyed the cooler air and nice breeze that was going through the city. While we were in Shinjuku it was very clean everywhere we went, well kept, and there were none of those foul oders you come across in cities in America.

The overnight bus was enjoyable, I slept on and off throughout the night, and we arrived bright and early in Kanazawa at around 6:30-7 in the morning.

Arrived!

Huzzah! So I arrived in Japan on Tuesday this past week, but Wednesday in Japan. The airport was quite easy to manage, and there was plenty English, but I did take note of the Japanese on the signs as well, and used Japanese with the people at the airport. I did have one small scare. I thought my check-in suitcase was lost, but turns out it was not. Apparently the lightning in my room makes my suitcase look gray, and in the airport lighting it looked like an olive green, or I'm color blind now, lol. After I met up with Taylor and Sarah and we headed down to the train station underneath the airport and got on the slower express train. The airport was both very clean and rather quiet, but it was very nice as well. I will update this again later with more.