Today I woke up and it had become real. The prospect of a year abroad had been approaching since last November like a large building spotted from a distance through haze, the looming outline discernible but the details obscured. At 6:30 this morning, half an hour ahead of my alarm, I opened my eyes to find myself at the building’s threshold, too close to take in the structure’s dimensions at a glance but only an arm’s reach from the door. Also I found myself on my friend Andy’s couch, his dog Lupe hungry for attention and making anxious little noises in my direction.
Andy made coffee and I finished packing, and we said our goodbyes. He left for work and I hauled my luggage downstairs to the driveway, where my friend and fellow traveler Sean ran over my carry-on bag with his car a few minutes later. A quick panicked examination revealed mercifully little damage: the bag itself will have to be replaced, and a few of my omiyage (gifts for teachers, etc., in Japan; in this case, candies from See’s and Trader Joe’s) look a bit dog-eared, but nothing expensive or irreplaceable was broken.
Sean and I met his mother, brother, grandfather, and grandmother for breakfast at a pancake house near the airport. Then his family gave us a lift to the JAL check-in lobby and said their goodbyes. A friend of Sean’s who works for JAL arranged for us to have access to the airline’s “Sakura Lounge,” where we enjoyed the cool and the quiet, the comfortable seats, and the complimentary beverages and Internet access.
And then we were on a 747, in a bulkhead exit row with infinite leg room, airborne, bound for Osaka.
As soon as the airplane reached cruising altitude, the flight attendants distributed hot towels, which were followed by the snack and beverage cart, which was followed by the meal, during which were made separate offers, in almost unbroken succession, of beer and wine, hot green tea, coffee, and “English tea.”
We watched National Treasure 2 and Juno en route. The first was, as expected, a perfectly serviceable distraction; the second, as expected, was one of the best films of recent memory. Both gave me cognitive whiplash as I tried to decipher the Japanese subtitles and reconcile them to the English audio track.
After Juno, the flight attendants donned their aprons again and disappeared behind the galley curtain, to emerge after a period of busy clattering with somen and mango pudding, the eating of which was punctuated by repeated offers of juice and tea and coffee and tea.
A plastic sign on the bulkhead opposite my seat declared the flight’s Senior Cabin Attendant to be a certain “A. Okai.” To this native English speaker, reading quickly according to instinct, this is about the best name ever.
We landed in Osaka on Wednesday, April 2nd, at 4:30 p.m., having taken off from Honolulu at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday the 1st. We’d lost 19 hours while flying for 7. I suspected that this would only become truly disorienting the following morning, as it did on my first trip to Japan, two years ago.
We sailed through customs and wrestled our luggage across the terminal to the JR station, where we bought tickets from a machine that knew some English, and boarded the Kyoto-bound Haruka express. As we rolled along through nightfall, our view of the drab and cluttered Kansai region became a window onto a black universe populated by fluorescent constellations and neon supernovas. At Kyoto station we shoehorned our bags into the taxi of a mildly confused driver who consulted our map, nodded, and delivered us to a building just across the street from where we needed to be, a fact which took us a good five minutes to comprehend. A concerned passerby finally set us straight, and we crossed to find Hamana-sensei and Nishimura-sensei waiting very patiently for our arrival. They graciously showed us to our rooms on the third floor of the men’s dorm, which has been given over to the international students. All five of us.
Szymon is from Poland; Almerindo from Portugal; Tanawat from Thailand. Sean and I round out the male contingent. Four female Midorikai students live in the women’s dorm, up the street and around the corner. Yo, from Beijing, is not technically a Midorikai student, but will apparently be studying with us under some arrangement I can’t quite fathom. Equally confusing is the fact that she lives here in the men’s dorm. Of the ten international students, four have been here since September of last year; the rest of us are brand new.
Szymon, one of the September group, showed Sean and me around the building and then invited us into his room for a bowl of tea. Afterwards, we unpacked and made a raid on the second-floor tea practice room that is temporarily functioning as a dumping ground for outgoing residents’ cast-off stuff. I found an ironing board and iron, a zabuton (a flat square pillow on which to sit when working at my low desk), and a wealth of clothes hangers. I decided not to claim one of the several orphaned televisions; I’m sure I can find better things to do in my free time.
My room is cozy but not cramped: really a small studio apartment. The genkan, or entranceway, holds a cabinet made for Japanese shoes; my American size 12s only fit sideways on the shallow shelves. Shoes off, one steps up into a short and narrow hallway. Doors to the toilet and bathroom (always separate in Japan) open off of one side. On the other are a washing machine; kitchenette with sink, hot plate, mini-fridge, and shelves; and a closet. Finally one steps down again into the main room. The floor is wood. A full-length mirror stands in one corner, my desk sits in another. I have a bed but don’t know if I’ll use it. I appropriated an orphaned tatami mat from the hallway outside, and decided to see how that and a futon would treat me.
I made a quick trip for sundries to the “Lawson Station” convenience store (the signs feature Old West-style English lettering and the silhouette of an antique milk can) half a block north of the dorm; then, having unpacked my few possessions and constructed a little private space for myself in this new place, the clock reading 11-something but my body insisting that it was nearly five in the morning, I turned in.