Osaka, Japan

CRAZY FIRST DAY OF JAPAN!

After missing the Flyaway by 3 minutes (going to blame Cristina for this one) and having an hour delay, I was convinced that America didn’t want me to leave to Japan. The 11 hour flight to Narita wasn’t bad at all, but upon leaving the plane, a (very sweet) Japanese airport employee was calling out my name and seriously hustled me to get to my connecting flight because they were going to close check-in in an half hour. So included in this half hour of madness, I dashed across the airport, impatiently maneuvered my way through immigration and customs, and hauled ass to make it to my connecting flight with literally less than five minutes to spare. Got to KIX in one piece luckily and I used the limited Japanese I knew to send my luggage to the university and used the ticket machine to buy bus fare for the bus to ITM where our hotel for the first night was. Stressful ass first day, but the hotel was really nice! And I felt super accomplished for handling on foreign territory.

Some takeaways:
I recommend almost always flying in and out of Tokyo, Haneda over Narita if you could. From Tokyo, connections to other cities are much easier and cheaper than flying direct there. Most times you'll have a connection from NRT/HND anyway if you plan on flying elsewhere. The shinkansen is ridiculously efficient and can be inexpensive with a JR Pass.

Japan has a very efficient luggage transportation system through Yamato Transport. Do yourself a favor and ship your luggage (if it's very large) to your hotel or where you are staying and vice versa to the airport. It really is a game changer considering I had to pack for 3 months in Japan.Read more