Day 27 - Day 26 Update & Day 27 - (7/14/2009)

Made it to Misawa!
So lets finish off day 26,
-7.13.2009-
I got on the flight to Narita with no one sitting next to me and about an hour forty later I was in Japan!
Ok, so for those of you who might have seen the news (or maybe not) apparently my flight to Japan made the news. haha. I don't think I have ever had a more wicked landing experience ever in my life. So we like hit turbulence seconds before touching down, and I mean like a few feet off the ground I was out of my seat turbulence, but I guess that was our back tires touching down before our front, but I'm not sure. And then we are on the runway and I realize the pilots have turned the plane and we're now skidding on the runway at a few hundred miles an hour and still bouncing around. haha it was weird, people were like screaming and panicking, and the flight attendant sitting in front of me facing me was just smiling away and rolling her eyes at the passengers and we're both laughing.
Now that was a landing.

Ok, after the roller coaster landing I get through customs and the older lady met me out in baggage claim. She has a name by the way... haha, it's Noriko. So Noriko knew the type of rail pass I was trying to get so she showed me where the rail booth was and began speaking Japanese to the person working there to figure out if I can get that pass. The lady working turned to me and said that JR passes had to be acquired from your home country, outside of Japan... I told her no, that I know some do but I checked their website and this pass had to be bought in Japan because you had to show a plane ticket leaving Japan. Well I went to the bathroom real quick and experienced the most high tech toilet it was crazy. When I came back Noriko had looked up train passes to Misawa and their prices and they were, like I already knew, really expensive one way... well Noriko said there is an official JR office one floor down, so she took me there and talked to them for me and they were all like, "Oh yea, the four flexible day pass, no problem, it's this much and will you be using it today?" haha super easy, so I told them I was going to Misawa and they made all my train reservations, and gave me my tickets and told me what to do and then I was off! Noriko was going just to Tokyo so, which was my first stop and train change, so we got seats together here, this whole times she's helping me figure all this out. 70 min later we arrive in Tokyo, before she leaves she helps me find my next train and how to use my passes. Then I go through and say goodbye and now I'm on my own. haha. So this is my first time on the bullet train.

I'll be on this train for about 3 hours, from Tokyo all the way to Hachinohe where I then have 15 min to figure out where the next train is, the one to Misawa. Everything goes smoothly, the scenery was amazing.

and the train to Misawa was delayed like 30 min. I finally arrive in Misawa around 7:10pm and hurry to the taxis. omg, these taxis were AMAZING! The drivers have like a button that opens and closes the door automatically, so you never have to really work, and their meters works! And when you arrive at your destination.... They print you out a receipt! They don't ask for tips, they don't "get lost" and have to stop and ask others for directions, they don't charge more for being a tourist, they are clean, and they don't really talk to you but are still very nice. It was cool. So it's now like 7:20 and I walk up to the office outside the Misawa Air Force Base and use their phone to call Josh.... No answer... so I call again... Still no answer... So I call his work.... An answer, but it's not him and the person on the phone doesn't know where Josh is.... So now I spend the next hour calling his room and no one is answering. I ask the officer working if there are any hostels around or an internet cafe (which he began laughing when i said internet cafe 'cause he prolly thought I wanted to stay there lol) so I could find a cheap place to stay online. He asked around for me and said the nearest hotel was across the street, for about 5,000 yen. So I went there, got a room which ended up being 6,200 yen but breakfast was included. The room was really cool, small for the price but this is Japan. So I went to my room and got situated, plugged in my phone and fell asleep.
-7.14.2009-
Ok, so this morning I woke up around 6:30am. I went downstairs to have breakfast then went back to my room, packed and checked out. I go BACK to the base, it's now around 7:40am and i try calling josh again. He finaly picks up half asleep and is all oh crap, hey I'll uh be there soon. A little later a guy walks in to the front office and asks if I was Kenny, I said said yes and so he checks me in and I get my visitors pass. we then drive into the base and pick josh up. Josh isn't allowed to really leave the base due to a little thing that happened haha. Anyways, I'm finally at Joshes place. Josh has to go to work at noon, so he goes to take a nap, and I decide to crash as well on the couch. Even though I slept for a solid 9 hours the previous night, I still slept hard for another four and a half hours, this trip has worked me over.
Josh comes back around um, 4-ish with food and after two hours he heads back to work. So I've just been chillin' around relaxin' and watching movies on TV and talking to Kumiko on facebook about meeting in Tokyo. Tomorrow I don't know whats up, I think I'm going to go see Joshes work, or walk around Misawa. I'll find out tomorrow. It sucks though 'cause Josh can't leave the base, and he also has to work from noon to midnight. But his probation ends the day I planned on leaving for Tokyo. So I will now be leaving for Tokyo Saturday morning so we can go do something Friday night.
Well, I've uploaded some pictures from Thailand and India on facebook. I will get some from Egypt up, then upload a few from all three up on here.
byee.

Day 27 - Day 26 Update & Day 27 - (7/14/2009)

Misawa, Japan