Exchange Student’s Guide to Tokyo, Day 1: The Arrival

I am currently sitting in an apartment in Tokyo eating eggs. Since food is expensive in Tokyo, I’m out to save money by making my own breakfasts, which sounded like a good plan until I had to figure out how to buy milk, eggs, butter, and cheese in a country that doesn’t speak English.

I was going to write this post last night, since I told myself that I was going to write one everyday while I was in Tokyo, but after I took my shower I ended up passing out. Jeremy and I had both pulled all nighters in anticipation for our 3am departure for the airport, so we were pretty exhausted when we finally arrived at 6:30pm in Tokyo, and hungry. Since Jeremy’s knees were bothering him, I went out on a mission to find us some food at the supermarket down the street.

Tokyo is a very safe city. Like leave-your-wallet-to-save-your-table-at-the-food-court safe. The issue is that very few people speak English. Jeremy, thankfully, has studied Japanese for a year and has a decent understanding of the language. He tried to teach me some key phrases, which I’m taking the time to review right now, since as soon as I went to purchase something ALL of it left my brain.

The lady at the counter was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t tell what the total was, so I kinda just threw money at her and she managed to figure it out and was very nice about it. I gave her a very heartfelt “Arigato” and then left with the sneaking anxiety that “arigato” wasn’t actually thank you and that I had just said hello very nicely (don’t worry, I did actually get it right).

Other than that, the day was mostly empty other than the plane, which was thankfully uneventful. Today, I am leaving to go to Sunshine City, a gigantic city center with indoor theme parks and, very importantly, the Pokemon Mega Center. Don’t worry: I’m armed and ready for the cold!