The arrival to Japan, the dream starts.
Finally, I’m in Japan, land of samurai, earthquakes, skirts and sushi (not in that order). The travel by plane was very boring: 14 hours without talking and without almost sleeping is a lot of time. But there were the emotion, the spirit of adventure, the challenge of the unknown, the absolute need of everything going right, the intention of do not remake previous mistakes,… Of course, the last one was impossible to achieve.
Volando voy volando vengo
On the plane they gave everybody a paper which you had to fill with your visa data and some questions like if you have ever been a guilty in your home country or how many money in cash were your wearing in that moment. Entering food is not allowed but they did not find my “bocadillo de jamón” xD.
Once in the airport I called one of my new colleagues in Toshiba (東芝) to tell him that I had arrived to Narita and that I was going to Yokohama (横浜) by bus (I got some coins for the phone call by buying the bus ticket). When I met my new Japanese friend I realized for the first time that I was going to have communication problems in Japan. They do not speak much English but this is normal, they don’t need to (just like in Spain). Everything is in Japanese and there are not a lot of gaijins here at all. In my neighborhood you can stay for days without seeing an occidental guy. And of course, if you have to apply for a bank account or a an Internet connection you’ll have problems. I’ll write a post about Japanese bureaucracy with the kanjis for name, telephone so if someone goes to Japan it may results useful.
Well, my colleague was more hungry than me so, instead of going directly to my dormitory we went to have lunch in a Japanese fast food restaurant next to Tsurumi (鶴見) station (one of those where you select and pay in a machine at the entrance what you are going to eat and then you sit in the bar). I love these restaurants, not for their quality (they are not bad neither!) but for they price and because of the fact that you don’t need to know Japanese. Even if you want to learn it, like me, you will realize that is not like going to England without speaking English; they ask you for things that you have not thought about or you don’t know even that they exist, so the understanding can be difficult. One example is the hanko. In Japan, nobody signs documents, they use the hanko, some kind of seal with your name in katakana handwritten by you. That was one of the first things that I did with the help of my colleague. Like a lot of other things, it would be impossible for me do it alone.
da-ni-e-ru
After some shopping (the dormitory was completely empty) , we went to have dinner in a sushi restaurant very nice in my neighborhood. Such a good sushi! For less than 9€! During the dinner we drunk hot green tea instead of water. I thought it would be awful but I liked a lot the combination of the bitter tea and the sushi.
When we finished, my partner went home and I, instead of going to my dormitory, decided to go Tokyo for a couple of hours (in 30 minutes I can be in the very center). More specifically to Akihabara because I wanted to buy an adapter for the plug of my laptop. Explosion of lights, land of exceeds and consumerisms. Sometimes I feel myself in another world. But other times you look at the people and you see them using the same dressing style that in Europe, having the same expression, laughing in the same way that you do with your friends. In this moments, I feel like if I were inside a dream, being in Europe but with all the people having oriental faces.
There are still lots of things to tell, thousands and thousands, starting from my dormitory (that is on itself a world). But this would be another day!
