I woke up at 4am to finish packing and we left around 6. We arrived at the airport at half past, a lot sooner than I'd expected, but, then, the roads I should've known the roads'd be pretty clear at that time.
As anyone would be, I was very glad to see that the queues in front of the check-in desks were very short; actually, we were third in line when we joined. Although before we got to the front a member of staff approached us, asked which flight we'd be on and told us that the flight to Abu Dhabi had been delayed by long enough for me to miss my connecting flight out to Tokyo, but to ensure that I reach my destination I've been booked into a BA flight and just needed to join the queue behind us to get the ticket. We queued for four hours!
The 'we' is mum and me. Rika had school but didn't leave til very late, I'm not sure why, daddy dropped her off and Yusuf went with them cos he has an infection that's making walking painful and once we got the ticket we had to make our way to terminal 5 (we were at terminal 3). When we got to the front of the queue, mum kicked up a fuss, demanding for an upgrade from economy class, but what can Etihad do about BA seating? That really annoyed me, especially as I was the one travelling and didn't care, and really needed to pee. Plus the BA flight was going directly to Tokyo and we landed just after 9am, whereas my original intinerary said that I'd arrive around lunchtime.
You'd have probably laughed at the way I looked walking around the airport. I had a long pillow tied to my backpack and my panda toy (Panthy =] ) strapped in; he looked like a child in a sling. Man my backpack was heavy and a bit of nuisance but it was totally necessary. The flight was uncomfortable, the engines too noisy for me to sleep and I watched quite a bit of TV. When we landed, the air con was turned off and the door opened, it became warm and humid quite quickly; a small taste of the weather outside.
To my surprise, the queues at the immigration desks in the airport were very short in comparison with past experiences at other airports. I suppose that's evidence for Japanese efficiency. When called up you hand the officer your passport and the landing form filled out on the plane. Then you're asked to place your index fingers on scanner buttons, then have your picture taken. Baggage reclaim was like anywhere else and customs officials only say hello and ask you the purpose of your visit. Of course you're not hassled unless you've declared that you have exceeded any limits on particular kinds of items or brought any prohibited items.
Afterwards I moved some things from my suitcase into another bag to bring with me while I had the suitcase delivered. It was strongly recommended that I do this since I'd be travelling by public transport. I took a Skyliner from the airport to Keisei Ueno Station to meet the person escorting me to the dorm. The Skyliner looked really sleek and snazzy; I'll take a picture when I take it back to the airport in February. It had terminated at the airport, so they cleaned it before letting us board and the chairs all turned in their pairs to face the direction we travelled. I had hoped to keep my ticket, cos it looked pretty cool too, but the machine at the exit ate it.
Ticket machines at train stations are easy to use. The only trouble is in reading the map, as they're not always written in romaji and you need to look for your destination on the map above the machine to know how much to pay. You pay the machine, choose the fare accordingly and a ticket pops out.
My first impression of the train to the dorm is that it was really clean! Honestly, it glistened. Definitely a whole lot cleaner than the Northern line, but with a lot more adverts. There are both TV screens for adverts and posters. The carriages are bigger too and I couldn't believe that it would be filled with more people than Northern line trains can hold, but, then, Tokyo is a lot bigger. See, I know a guy living near Shinjuku, an area considered to be the centre of Tokyo, where it's always bright and buzzing, but it takes him an hour and a half to get to uni which is also in a hub thought of as the centre of Tokyo!
The nearest station to my dorm is Nishi Kawaguchi and then it's a 10 minute walk. It was so terribly hot, humid and sunny, and I'm sure I arrived at the dorm tanned. The dorm manager greeted us (the student escort and me) at the entrance. I was told that I had to take my shoes off at the entrance and each person gets their own shoe locker. In the entrance hall there is also a name board where you show whether you're in or out by sliding the marker; blue for in, red for out. The dorm manager very kindly insisted that he carry my backpack because I must've been tired, and my room's on the fourth/top floor. As I climbed the stairs I was saddened by the lack of colour in the building and I was exhausted; I wished that I could live in the dorms near campus.
Here we get sunoko beds and have to rent futon, and the dorm manager helped set up the futon and tidy the sheets. I'm so glad that I have air con in my room; I was melting. After eating a fish onigiri for lunch, I was shown the shower room, public bath room and canteen. There's also a lounge with sofas, a TV and an exercise bike. Each floor has a room with toilets, sinks, laundry machines and each person gets a little cupboard space for their toiletries but, out of habit, I'll keep my stuff in my room.
Afterwards I took a shower and wanted so much to collapse on my bed, but since orientation was at half 9 the next morning I thought it's be best that I was shown how to get to campus and look for the building where we were meeting, so that I needn't bother someone early in the morning. I'll tell you about orientation later.
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