Arriving in Japan

Traveling with a group of teenagers through an airport is honestly just as chaotic as it sounds. With an approximate 10:1 youth to adult ratio, I found it pretty impressive that we all made it to the gate. AFS provided us with $10 each for lunch and having made it right on time—2 hours ahead of boarding—we were allowed to freely roam the terminal. I really tried to get the healthiest possible  meal for $10 available in LAX but with no way to verify that I will consider my choice a success via consensus from my stomach. I chose to get Panda Express beef and broccoli with a side of white rice and mixed vegetables(which was actually just more broccoli and a singular leaf of kale). I will not attempt to give it a ranking out of 5 stars because when you’re hungry anything tastes great, even Panda Express. 

I thoroughly enjoyed having the exact speed of the plane available
 at the tap of my fingertips during the plane ride

On the plane we all sat in slightly scattered groups but our bright blue AFS shirts and discomfort felt by the other passengers seated between us kept us unified in spirit. From LAX to Narita Airport(Tokyo) is only a 11 hour flight, except there is also a 14 hour time difference from Chicago. Having this be my first big international flight I was definitely intimidated. My dads advice to this: “you can’t sleep enough. Jet lag is real”. So I made sure to add melatonin supplements to my packing list. I am proud to say that although I had Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse downloaded on my ipad I managed to resist the temptation and sleep for the majority of the flight. In my periods of waking I was curious enough to try the plane meals we were offered. We were served “dinner” and “breakfast”. I will not fully dish the quality or nutritional value of the dishes as it has been said before but what I will say is that plane grapes are surprisingly pleasant. Panda Express managed to keep me satiated enough to not need to rely on the plane meals.

Tokyo Tower🗼 👀

I was able to judge from the complaining that I was definitely the only one who got an adequate amount of sleep. We left on July 26th at 11:30am LA time and arrived on July 27th at 3pm Tokyo time, meaning we still had plenty of daylight hours to do more orientation!!! An AFS volunteer* accompanied us on our flight and through Japanese customs until we met up with AFS Japan staff**. From the airport we had a hour long bus ride into Tokyo to the hostel we would be staying at for three days before all traveling to our respective host communities. On the bus we were each given a little lunch bag containing onigiri(Rice ball), tuna sandwich, oranges in jello and a water bottle. Because the staff knew about my wheat allergy they gave me two onigiri instead. Although we wouldn’t be getting to explore Tokyo at all during our orientation it was exciting to get to take all the sights in and to snap some photos of Tokyo Tower and Disneyland as we passed by. 

Upon getting to our hostel we were greeted by more staff who led us to our rooms where we dropped our stuff off and headed to the baths. Even though it about 7:30pm we still had one last quick orientation session before heading to bed. Our rooms held four beds and two desks in a relatively compact rectangular space with a door that opened in a way I have never seen before. Despite my earlier boasts of being excellently rested I was still pretty worn out by the end of the day and was able to drift off to sleep pretty quickly.

*AFS operates its’ programs with a strong volunteer basis. The majority of the adults I refer to who are a part of my AFS experience—including my host family— are not compensated for the time and   resources they provide.

**I refer to them as staff but these individuals are also volunteers. At the orientation we met actual staff(individuals who receive payment for the work they do) who work to coordinate the program in the AFS Japan offices.