First Step In Japan.

I'm introducing a new section to this blog, known as Friday Macha. Friday means Friday (obviously) while macha means green tea in Japanese. Friday Macha will be a special section in which I share whatever I can remember about my 10-month AFS student exchange programme in Japan, with you readers. I truly regret that I didn't blog about my journey while I was there. It would have been better compared to now. Well now I need to refer to my diary besides getting correct facts from the Japanese websites.

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Let's not waste time by starting on the moment I set foot on the land of Nippon. Before retrieving our luggage and proceeding into the arrival hall, my group which consisted of 14 Malaysian students had to go through the immigration counters. We weren't accompanied by any adults; parents, officers or guardians, meaning that we were actually on our own. In other words, we had temporary freedom from our parents and guardians. Grew horns we did...right after we walked pass the immigration officers and into the oh-ever-amazing Japanese toilets. Malaysia is not an outdated countries in terms of restrooms. But believe me, we were behaving like aliens who just landed on Earth. Toilets in Japan are more advanced than those in developed countries. We call these toilets the BIDET TOILETS, also known as the Super Toilets.

I went, "Jo, there are buttons on the side of the toilet bowl!" *pressed the music button, played toilet-flushing sound* "Ahh..I thought they would play some Beyonce's songs." *facepalm*

A typical basic bidet toilet has bidet washing, anus washing and seat warming (the best thing on Earth during winter). More advanced bidet toilets have additional features such as massage options, deodorization and water jet adjustments. I've tried the one with massage options but honestly, i felt no difference. Just the humming sound of the machine of the toilet.

Chatting excitedly among ourselves, we entered the arrival hall, dragging our huge 25 kg luggage and hand luggage. We were greeted by a few AFS volunteers. Japanese student volunteers. Hence, those who have studied basic Japanese tried to converse with them in simple Japanese. Anthony was among the first ones to speak to them in nihongo (Japanese). The common words and sentences we used:

1. Genki desu ka. 元気ですか。(How are you?)
2. Genki desu. 元気です。(I am fine, thank you.)
3. Watashi no namae wa ....... 私の名前は.... (My name is ......)
4. Anata wa kirei desu. あなたは綺麗です。(You are beautiful.)
5. Hajimemashite. はじめまして。(Nice to meet you.)
6. Hai. はい。(Yes.)
7. Iie. いいえ。(No.)

While waiting for students from other countries to arrive, we lingered around the airport and eventually decided to buy our very first Japanese meals at the ubiquitous Lawson convenience store. Tell me, who would never start converting the currency when you're in a foreign country? I bet the cashier there had a shock to see the 14 of us calculating and converting the price. At that time, 100￥is equivalent to around RM3.60 to RM3.80. So, a 500￥tuna onigiri cost RM19 at most! I could have bought a filling black pepper chicken chop with that RM19!!!

Nevertheless, I had my first onigiri with shrimp filling. It felt so delicious simply because it was my first onigiri. Nowadays, I just eat onigiri with the 'meh' feeling.  

Once everyone had arrived, we boarded the shuttle buses to head to Narita Airport Hotel for an unexpected journey. 

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I don't think I would want to blog about my stay in Japan in the diary way of writing. I prefer writing about random things I can think of from the stay. So it won't be like Day 1, then Day 2 and so on. It gets really boring, in my opinion.