First Stop: Los Angeles!

My adventure begins as I wander the O’hare airport taking in the last semblances of familiarity before making the first flight of my trip. I am headed to Los Angeles to meet up with the other American students who are also going to Japan. We are required to attend a overnight program orientation that will cover any last minute questions/concerns as well as final preparation before we fly out the following day. 

When I arrived we were given a folder with all the materials and activities to be covered in the orientation in addition to a map showing the assumed route of how we would be getting to school. The main core of this program is the language learning and to provide the best possible experience all students will be provided classes at an accredited language teaching institution. Although Japanese schools do not end until late July, none of us will be doing an exchange at a regular Japanese high school. All of us are living in different areas (Sapporo, Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka & Fukuoka) based on our Japanese language level. Abilities and experiences range from one student being a fluent speaker to others who know nothing as well as others who are are self-taught or some received a formal education.

I will be living in Osaka(大阪). I will attend school close to the heart of the city while my home is about a 45 minute train ride away. There are only three other Americans who will be joining me in Osaka, the rest of my classmates will be other international students. AFS works to bring travel abroad experiences to people across the globe not just to and from the US. The other international students joining us in Japan come from Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Italy and Turkey. I don’t yet know who else is staying in our respective areas but all should be revealed once we get to Japan at orientation part 2.