First day

I had originally intended to make multiple posts, each detailing an aspect of my trip over; a description of the time I spent in LA, a description of the phenomenal service I received from ANA and the hotel I stayed in, and a play by play of my trip from Narita intl. Airport to Waseda Daigaku. Alas, my plans have been derailed. Still reeling from the time difference, I have been unable to think straight at night, let alone write, while my das are filled with orientation goodness and makeing friends. So a condensed version will follow:

L.A.- L.A. is gross. Still four hours outside of the city, you can see the smog, and it only seems to break once you hit the coast. Ick. Venice Beach is amazing though, and I could live there and love it. It was amazing to see the ocean again (despite it not being my ocean).

ANA- What a service! I am so glad I chose this airline to make my twelve hour trip. The food, for one, was amazing. Everything had great flavour. They gave us two meals, and left a snack tray in the galley so we could help ourselves. Each seat in coach had a tv moniter in the seat back in front of it, with about twenty movies to choose from, some tv programs, and inflight and airport information. The Flight Attendants were also incredibly nice. At one point, one spilled coffee on my pants, and proceeded t bring me towel after towel to clean it, and even went so far as to try cleaning it herslef, which made me a bit uncomfrotable but hey, thats service, right?

Hotel- The ANA Crown Plaza Hotel was nice. Not amazing, but nice. Ordered a club sandwhich from room service, which was at once bost the oddest and tastiest club I have ever had.

Narit- Narita is freaking green. It's beautiful there; despite being so close to Tokyo, it's slightly rural. Trees and bamboo every!

Tokyo- I met my pick-up group at the airport with no problem. They put us on the Narita Express train to Shinjuku station, and the few of use gaijin bonded on our hour-long ride. But alas, none of us were int he same dorm. Such is life I suppose.

Upon arriving at Shinjuku station, we were greated by Takumi who ran at us, hooting and jumping and screaming "YEAH WASEDA WOOOO YEAH" which was indeed quoite a welcome. It turns out the pick-up students are all part of the Waseda International Club, and very happy to see us. My personal guide, Taka, is a Red Sox fan, so we had a bit to talk about (in broken Japanese and halting English) on the subway ride from Shinjuku station to Tadakanobaba station, the closest to the school.

I was taken to my dorm, Waseda Hoshien Internationl, which is I am told, the nicest of the dorms. It's very clean and well maintained. After about twenty minutes, I made my first aquaintance, Dan. Dan is a grad student who lives on my floor, and togethr with his friends Eric and Jack, we went exploring the town, picked up essentials at the hyaku-en (100-yen) store, and had some fats food beef bowl, which was in a word, amazing. On my floor also resides Ward, the geeky tall Dutch kid who keeps to himself, Steean the Norwegian who is odd, and Toby, the tall, partying Asian kid from Canada, who is a hoot but waaay too over eager.

At about six, we had a welcoming party with we foreighn residents and the International Club, and mingled a bit. The dorm is one giant United Nations, with students from all over the world. My little crew has expanded to include Andrew from Virginia, Anna, Sabrina and Lucille from Paris, Kathy from Korea, and Katie from Toronto.

Post-party, we wandered around the town, finding the building I need to be at in three hours (the location of which is now a blur, thank you jet lag).

I have a few pics which will hopefully go up tonight, but no promises (sorry folks).

Signing off for now.

BTW my room is on the tenth floor, and the view is nothing short of amazing.