My trip began at the buttcrack of dawn on August 25th. At 4AM I pried my body out of bed. It was August 25th in Japan too, but only for a few more hours. I had a day’s worth of time travel to live through before I would see August 26th in Japan. My mom kept the waterworks to a minimum and I headed out.

In Japan an airport is a “kuuko” and ours was very quiet. My gate was the only gate in the basement (not the main floor where every other gate is) so it was even quieter. Why one basement gate? Why not have a basement full of gates? Why only one? Anyway, the first flight I took to Vancouver, British Columbia wasn’t even close to full. I had a row of seats to myself. That was a shame. I was too excited to sleep.

In Vancouver my laptop was mistaken for a weapon of mass destruction. We had to take it into a special room with some powder, a scanner, lights, etc. My ally and consent stickers weren’t enough insurance, apparently.

After that episode I dashed through the airport and chilled out before heading to Calgary. I slept through most of that flight. Possibly on my neighbor. I have little memory of what was going on. I do know that when we landed, my flight to Japan was already boarding. No one has cleared an airport as fast as I did. I sat alone in the middle of a huge row, waiting to see who I’d be sitting with. I was hoping for a kind Japanese person to practice speaking with.

Instead I was boxed in on all sides by giant and I mean giant, blonde, beautiful white boys from Calgary. They were going to train at Tokyo’s Olympic Center with a Japanese volleyball team. A dozen of them surrounded me. This was not the company I’d signed up for. Fortunately they swapped seats with me so I was in the aisle instead of smashed between them.

I napped for approximately ten minutes. I peed a lot, watched movies and played a plethora of infuriating touch screen games. Sudoku is extra annoying when you have to touch the box and then touch the number and then touch outside the box with your arm in a weird position. Also you can’t touch too hard or you will literally shake the person in front of you and that’s bad form. Too soft and the screen won’t register what you’re doing. Pro tip: stick to Captain America movies and Modern Family episodes. With food, always pick the chicken dish.

Then came immigration and customs. I thought customs would be the hard part, but it was immigration that took the longest. When I got to the guy who sorts people into lines, I showed him my passport and my certificate of eligibility to stay for over three months. This got me into a tiny line far away from everyone else. Fortunately, the guy who finger printed me and took my stuff was super nice.

Customs was easy. I slid my bags through, told them I had medicine and a drug form, showed them my pill bottles and got waved through. Totally painless. I walked out and the Peer Assistant (PA) from Tokyo International University was standing right there with a big smile. His name is Nao and I am certain he was absolutely terrified of us. He smiled and stared most of the time.

I met Nicole (from Willamette) and Kate (from Virginia Tech) shortly thereafter. We talked until I caught a whiff of my own armpits. Apparently, airplanes are not kind to armpits. I made a speedy retreat to the bathroom with deodorant. We all made the collective mistake of not shipping our belongings to our host families ahead of us. Thus we each had approximately 90 pounds of luggage to pull around Japan. Pro tip: don’t do this. Let the airport deliver your luggage to wherever you’re going. Japan is hot, crowded and narrow.

Our bus ride from the airport took over three hours. The next time I hear someone complain about traffic anywhere, I’m telling them to visit Tokyo.

I can say with absolute certainty that in my entire 21 years of life, I had never felt so painfully tired. I tried desperately to stay awake and fought a splitting headache. I didn’t want to fall asleep. If I did, jetlag would descend. The best way to overcome jetlag is to immediately get on the eating and sleeping schedule of the country you’re in, regardless of how you feel. I needed to get on Japan’s schedule as quickly as possible. Kate felt the same way. We talked about everything. We were so tired that neither of us had a filter and I’m pretty sure I shared intimate details about my life. She did the same.

In the not private category, Kate is from Virginia and goes to Virginia Tech. She is an international relations and Russian double major and a Japanese minor. She is very cute and bubbly and has pink everything. She was very much into cuddling and talking like a meme master. Her goosebumps under the AC were bigger than mine, so she bumped my arm and said: “Get wrecked, Hannah’s goosebumps.” She immediately dubbed me her best friend. I may sound annoyed, but I’m not. She’s seriously awesome.

So, we finally disembarked from the bus and Nao took us to the hotel. He says it’s a five minute walk. With 90 pounds of luggage, it was the longest five minutes of my life. The hotel staff spoke perfect English, but I kept answering in Japanese. When they switched to Japanese to entertain me, I couldn’t understand a thing they were saying. They were very considerate of my sleepy, language deprived haze.

It was only seven o’clock at that point. I shoved my stuff into my room and met the others in the lobby just a few moments later. We needed food. Our level of delirium was dangerous, but we had to pretend we were on Japan time. We walked through Kawagoe, careful to remember turns, until we found a convenience store. I feasted on salmon onigiri (something I’ve seriously missed), went back to the hotel with the others, showered briefly and crashed. Eleven hours of sweet sleep.

I woke up, got ready and arbitrarily picked a time to get breakfast. It was the same arbitrary time Kate picked, so we sat together. Our brains are definitely on the same page.

I’m not sure who told the Kawagoe Daichii Hotel staff what a western breakfast is, but they need to be fired on cultural accuracy issues. Breakfast consisted of toast (good one) salad (a little weird) peas and carrots (much weirder) mashed potatoes (what is going on right now). On the more understandable side, a small pile of pulverized (scrambled would be too kind) eggs and some salami. They also gave me black coffee. I felt so caffeine empty that I tried it. Still icky.

I went back up, grabbed my bags, went to the lobby and was told the bus had arrived twenty minutes early. Someone shuffled me out to it. It was pouring down rain. I quickly got inside (as quickly as one can do anything with 90 pounds of “nimotsu” or luggage) and waited for the others. The trip to the school was much nicer. Only about twenty minutes. I met a bunch of other students. All very cool.

The university is lovely. Lots of amazing people and places. It’s the home of the English Plaza (English only zone) and the Japanese Plaza (Japanese only zone). We entered the Japanese Plaza and quietly stared at each other, but we’ll get there. Cue a slew of paperwork, information and whatnot. Lots of technicalities and pointers from the program directors.

Then came the Japanese placement test. The first page was a breeze. The second page was about 50% readable with questions that made no sense. I looked at the third page, sighed and moved on to the writing portion. My final language exam all over again. My essay was filled with English nouns I didn’t know the Japanese words for. On the plus side, I got to brag about how cool Oregon is.

The interview was the most fun. Two ladies asked me a ton of questions. I struggled a lot more than I thought I would, but I could understand them even when I didn’t know how to answer. My listening is pretty solid. They were impressed (very loudly) that people had bought my art in the past. That felt good.

They then provided lunch and told us to get fancy. Suddenly my luggage woes were worth it. I could do fancy. My dress, tights and flats were all on top.

We finished up with an opening ceremony. I finally did something flawlessly in Japanese: introduced myself to a huge crowd full of host families. When they called my family’s name, two little boys jumped up and screamed “KONICHIWA!” Everyone in the audience swooned and I did, too. Hiroto and Atsuto. They stole my heart instantly. I introduced myself. They gave me their big, puppy eyes as approval and insisted on helping me push my luggage (while I pulled it). In the car on the way home, Hiroto (five years old) and I helped each other count to 100 in English and Japanese. Atsuto napped. He is only three.

My host mom, Saeko, is awesome. She literally walked me through everything about the house, the transportation system in the city and the surrounding area. She showed me how to work every device in the house and was infinitely patient with me when I didn’t know how to say something or had to have her repeat herself. She walked me to the station where I’ll go every day to get to school, took me to get a commuter pass and wrote me a chart of how to get where.

We also went shopping. She insisted that feeding me was her job, so she wanted me to pick out things I wanted to eat. I was distressed. I could not read anything. I did know how to tell her I liked tea and yogurt, so we got a big bottle of tea and some strawberry yogurt. Then came the really entertaining stuff. Feminine hygiene.

Bodies are not gross by any means in Japan. Normal bodily functions are a fair point of discussion. I failed to understand that she wanted me to pick out pads or tampons until she looked expectantly at me and told me to choose. I told her I was covered. In Japanese: “I have them.” She assumed I meant at that precise moment. “Are you having it right now?” “No, in my luggage.” She said: “but you’ll be with us for four months.” I then told her I had packed enough pads for that long. She was stunned. She didn’t believe these would fit in my bag. I didn’t know enough Japanese to tell her I’m a whiner who likes a very specific kind of hygiene product and who is kind of a powerhouse at packing.

When we got home, I met her mother, the boys’ grandma. She is staying because Saeko’s husband (my host dad) is working in India for a few weeks. She is very kind. She talks to me about serious stuff, very slowly, word by word. She helps Saeko with the boys and gives her time to be in private.

Host mom prepared an amazing welcome dinner for us. It consisted of yakitori, rice, miso soup, lotus root and cabbage and cucumber salad (strangely delicious. Reminder to try new things).

Host mom also bought a cheesecake. A cheesecake. I had said in my letter it was my favorite food. The older of the boys was too full to eat much, but the three year old silently mowed down a huge piece without breaking eye contact with us. I told the older (Hiroto) I was full and he patted my stomach to see just how full. He grabbed my boobs, got scolded and told me they looked new. I couldn’t help but laugh.

The boys got ready to take a bath and go to bed by ceremoniously stripping in the living room, running in circles, squealing and picking out pajamas. I showered after they went to bed and chatted with Grandma about work, mothering, getting married and the like. Forward thinking, for a grandma. She seemed to respect the fact that I didn’t want to have babies but wanted to help take care of them in the hospital. We both commented on how women all over the world do it all – work, housework, kid care, marriage, and so on. I went up to go to bed. Here I am writing at Midnight on Sunday, August 28th.

What have I learned so far? I’ve been reminded that bodies are not taboo. No one is embarrassed by their bodily functions or by nudity. Laughter diffuses tension. High pressure situation or not, a mistake gets a giggle. Japan has lots of rules. Luggage is heavy. Children are wonderful but a lot of work. Japan is very sweaty, but everyone is sweaty together, so it works out. There are a ton of people here. I’ll write again soon.