For flying to Japan, Rachel and I started from O’Hare International Airport at 11:55 p.m. and arrived at Incheon International Airport in South Korea at 4 a.m., local time. Just from seeing how the cities were organized made me realize how different living is across the world. The first picture is of Chicago and the second was taken when flying over Seoul. Luckily, at Incheon Airport there were a lot of stores to look around in because we had a 5 hour layover. Finally around 9 am we boarded the plane and took off for Narita Airport.

After being sent back in line for immigration a couple times for forgetting to fill out some paperwork, we were greeted with the giant “Welcome to Japan” sign (the fifth picture). Soon after that we managed to grab our luggage and met with one of our bosses who helped us out with exchanging our money to yen and getting our suica cards. After only being here for a couple days I’ve come to realize just how much I would be using the suica card and how Japan revolves much more heavily around paying with cash rather than a credit card. Back at home I honestly would carry barely any cash and almost solely use my card, so that was something that I had to get used to.

After a two hour train ride from the airport, we reached Higashi-Koganei station and from there my boss and I walked to my living accommodations. The third and fourth pictures are of the main entrance and waiting area. I’m staying in an Oakhouse Social-Residence and it’s pretty nice. There’s a ping pong and pool table, guitars and electric pianos, a small dance studio, a decent amount of video game consoles, a big kitchen and some other stuff. After getting my room and signing the contracts, our boss treated us to a nice dinner. Once we finished, I headed back to my room, unpacked and finally got to go to sleep. After pretty much a whole day of traveling my day ended.