Given that I'm posting again, you may have guessed I made it to Japan. Indeed I did, that part wasn't the problem, it was the getting to where I'm staying. You get on a flight and someone else does all the work of getting you there but once you land you have to figure it out for yourself. Thankfully there is plenty of English signage and many airport officials speak good English. Anyway, here is the story of me getting to and getting confused in Japan.
So my flight took off at 1:20am. It's actually a pretty good time because you can just get on the plane and pass out, which is what I ended up doing. I fully woke up at 6 or 7am my time, which is the middle of the night in Japan. The rest of the flight wasn't painfully boring as most 4+ hour flights are. The cute Japanese lady in the seat next to me just curled up in her seat and slept most of the flight. Made me wish I was that small again.
Once we landed everyone was shuttled off the plane and with our forms we got handed and filled out on the plane waited in line with our passports. There was a family in line there where a young boy was carrying his little sister's bag and trying to convince her to take it back. It was pretty cute. A young Japanese guy directed us to various desks and when I got directed to one the guy there took my passport and forms and took my finger prints and a picture (or something like that happened). He took one of the two forms and sent me on my way.
Then I waited around for my checked bag to come through and went to customs. I handed them my passport and the remaining form. They looked at it, took the form, and sent me on my way.
Now I was in the lobby area. Mind you my flight landed at 4:30am so nothing was open. Just a bunch of tired and some not so tired people. I exchanged some money and looked around. I had to call the head of the program telling them I had arrived, but my phone didn't work and I had no coins for the payphones. Since I had to wait for some of the shops to open, I visited the bathrooms there, which are super nice by the way. I was all gross from the flight so I changed clothes and washed my face. After that I paced nervously and eventually just waited in front of a convenience store until it opened at 6am. Got some water and decided to tackle the payphones. Never used one before, but the concept is fairly simple. Pick up phone, insert coin, dial number. However, I'm in Japan and don't really know exactly how I'm supposed to dial. I just dialed the number I saw and I think it went through but I'm basing all this on the beeps I heard because I couldn't understand the computer voice because it was in Japanese. After a few tries I just sat down in a waiting area to eat some food and try to get my phone to connect to the wifi so I could at least text the head of the program. All the sudden my phone decided to work and messages came in. Apparently my dad had set it up so I could use my phone internationally for the day. I texted my parents for a while and then went to the help desk with my printed out instructions that included messages in Japanese in case I needed to ask for help. The lady was beautiful and so was her English and she helped me try to call which didn't work again, but she confirmed that it simply wasn't being picked up. I texted the head of the program that I had gotten to the airport and went to get on the monorail.
Getting a ticket was fairly easy since the kiosks could be set to English. The train app on my phone was working so I used that to figure out what trains I needed to take. The signs were fairly understandable and I also just followed a European family who I assumed was also going to Tokyo Station. There are these little walkways you go through where you put your ticket through and it gets read and pops up on the other side. That was all fine and good and I got on the monorail and sat there watching station names. Something about the monorail is that the track is at an angle sometimes. It's a little unnerving but the view is nice. Once I got to the station, I followed the family again and got confused when I got to the ticket taking thing again. I went back up to the platform and wandered around for a while until I remembered you have to put your ticket through again and then had to figure out how to get back down. Eventually I just picked up my suitcase and walked down the stairs when people had cleared out a bit. Ran my ticket through and that was all fine and good.
Now that I was in Hamamatsucho station, I had to get a regular train ticket to get to Tokyo Station. The map was easy enough to understand and I got my ticket and got on the right train. Once I got to Tokyo station, I expertly (not really) went through with my ticket and was now running around the station. I knew I had to get a bullet train ticket, but was kinda unsure of how to do so. I walked around the station a lot following signs that looked like they could be what I was looking for. Eventually I got to a ticket station where I showed the guy the printed out message for getting a ticket. He gave me the ticket and sent me on my way. Here's the thing: the ticket was in mostly Japanese. That means I had no idea where I had to go or what time this train was. Considering it was probably soon I knew I had to ask someone where I needed to go. There was a lost and found office with a guy sitting in there so I went in and said "sumimasen, doko deska?" while pointing at my ticket. That means something along the lines of "excuse me, where is this?" in super unelegant Japanese. He looked at it and pulled out a map of the station and told me where to go while drawing a map. His English was about the level of my Japanese, so the numbers of the lines and left, which was still quite useful. I thanked him and went on my way. Where he sent me had four lines, so I had to figure out which one. One of the two staircases flashed "Niigata," which is where I'm going, so I headed up that staircase. I looked at the lighted signs and one said Niigata so I looked at that one until it changed to some English. There were two trains headed to Niigata, one at 9:12am and one at 9:28am. They had the kanji for where they stopped below them so I checked it against the kanji on my ticket and discovered the train I needed to take was the 9:28am one.
Also, just so you know, this whole time I was trying to get directions using a train app and contact the head of my program, but neither worked for very long. I managed to get the one message to the head of the program but LINE kept crashing after that so I couldn't even see what he sent me aside from what I saw in the notification. Managed to get a message to my parents asking them to call and tell him which train I was on before that cut out too.
Getting on the train was the end of my 5 hours of being confused in Tokyo, but I'll include the rest of my trip too.
The train ride itself was really nice. Took about two hours. I had an unreserved seat so I just sat down and put my suitcase in front of me. A lady sat on the aisle seat (I had window seat), but she wasn't on the train for very long. Thoroughly exhausted from all the confusion, I fell asleep momentarily a few times and almost dropped my ticket but since my stop wasn't the last one I knew I shouldn't fall asleep. Thankfully past Juno was smart and brought chocolate so I was able to stay awake. The train ride had some really nice views so I watched out the window and tried to make sense of the announcements and the flashing screen. When we got to my stop, I got my suitcase down the short stairs (it's kinda difficult) and once I was on the platform a guy who was on the train with me pointed to the elevator so I wouldn't have to carry my suitcase down the stairs again. Once I got down to the rest of the station the head of my program was there (my parents had managed to call him) and while the gate didn't like my ticket a really cute guy came out and checked it and let me through. Then I was driven to the house and all was fine and good.
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