There's no place like home

36 hours with only catnaps, a few cups of coffee, 24 hours of sunlight, and long long plane rides... but I'm in my new home.

My last day in Canada was spent packing and setting up my parents computers. I also went for a check-up and some shots, bloodwork, the usual annual checkup stuff. So that day was boring, nothing to know about it except that I stayed up all night until I was packed. My dad and I left home at 3:30 am to catch the 7:15 plane.

So I was one of the first 4 or so people to arrive at Pearson. We hung out, talked, had fun. More and more people joined. It was a good group, and I'm sad to see us all go to different cities. A handful stayed in Osaka, a few went to Kyoto and Kobe which are close. We weren't sitting together on the plane, we mostly hung out at the airports because we had a lot of time at each one. The highlight however was meeting the British Asian guy who told us stories about having been an English teacher in Japan. He said he couldn't stand it, and the only way he could do it is by getting absolutely pissed on his time off. He was an inspiration to me. His stories were just about how drunk he got and how the Japanese women run after foreign guys. He was hilarious, said Tokyo kind of sucks and Osaka's the best city in Japan. He also recommended not passing out on the streets. If that isn't sound advice, I don't know what is.

The plane ride to San Francisco was alright. It was only 5 hours followed by 3 hours of time to kill in the San Francisco airport. Then there was the really fun flight, the one that's 12 hours, over the pacific, with nothing to see but water.

The plane was enormous, every seat had a tv at the back of someone else's seat so you could watch the movies (spiderman 3, the ex and Fantastic Four: Flight of the Silver Surfer) or tract the where the plane was thanks to GPS, as well as indicate the altitude (11000 meters most of the flight), velocity (about 950 km/h max), distance travelled so far and distanced left (5800 km in all). I wondered if I was dead, and the plane ride was purgatory, or even hell (given enough time). One thing that occured to me during the flight is that since we were going from east to west, we were following the sun, so basically, I saw the sun from 6 am in Toronto to 7:30 pm Osaka time, which comes to 24.5 hours of sunlight. It wasn't a big deal, it was just funny to go from Tuesday to Wednesday without a night between. It's like one long tuesday, then all of the sudden it's Wednesday night, and I'm getting ready to sleep, and it'll be Thursday! For those of you in Toronto, you're all probably not even up for start your Wednesday.

One amazing thing about the United flight from San Francisco to Osaka is that the alcohol is provided with the flight! If only I knew that during the flight... unfortunately I heard about it after the fact.

There was however one kickass part of the flight, landing. After a few hours of sea, and the GPS tracker showing we were close to the coast and close to land, we looked out the window and saw the tip of mountains peaking through the clouds. It was really pretty, and I wish I didn't have four people between myself and the window. We landed at 4 pm, and after customs and all that bs, we got out of the airport at 6:30. We were met by Nova employees and told which bus to take until the end of the line.

There wasn't a big shock coming off the plane. I've been to Markham and Richmond Hill, so I've been around Asian people, it isn't anything new. Let's not also forget I did my degree in Computing. That's there's japanese everywhere that I can't read isn't bothering me. Everyone around me speaking Japanese is not a big deal. I have not suffered any kind of shock, I've only been extremely gleeful at the opportunity to explore a new country and culture. Mind you, the company has been holding our hand since we arrived.

From the airport we took a bus to the station near which I'll be living. I met another Nova employee who showed me how to get to my apartment with a map. We walked to the apartment, but got a little lost along the way. We found our way, because I live in a semi-sketchy one-way alley. The apartment's like a motel, the doors lead to outside, and there are stairs to the fifth floor. I'm beside a Hotel, but that's beside a busy street, and across from a Shinto Shrine with a big ass dragon. I plan on exploring it more tomorrow.

Japanese TV is nowhere nearly as entertaining as SpikeTV and youTube make it out to be. Plus because my IP is originating in Japan, some webpages have been loading up in Japanese. Just small things I didn't think about. I'm told that work is actually walking distance, which rocks because when I applied they said it would take less than an hour of train and bus.

So I'm just getting ready to sleep, and unpack. It's been good times. More updates to come.