Right now I'm somewhere over the Pacific Ocean on my way to Japan. It's a little hard to comprehend it all right now. As I was sitting in the plane in Vancouver I kept asking myself "What am I doing? Am I ready for this?" Pre-travel jitters of course, but as soon as the plane took off the questions stopped. There's no turning back right now no matter what. In about 10 hours I'll touch down and begin what is sure to be one of the best years of my life.

The plane ride to Vancouver was cramped, but at least I had a window seat. This plane right now is a lot less crowded and the seat next to me is open so I can stretch out my legs a bit which is nice. I'm not the only white person on the plane either. There's a white guy in front of me and I think I saw one more as well somewhere on here. The plane otherwise is pure old-timers. I'm guessing a toursit group since they all have similar tags on their shirts. 10 hours to go, what to do?

Osaka is incredible. I got in at 5. The trip from the airport was uneventful for the most part, but my luggage kept falling off the cart I had it on and I felt pretty pathetic because it felt like everyone was looking at me. Then I tripped getting into my seat on the bus as well. Very smooth. It's pretty far from the airport to the city, but the drive was nice there were so many factories and businesses on the way. The sun was setting as well and the lights were coming on. Honestly you can't even compare pictures to the real thing. It's insane. The roads were packed bikes and motorcycles everywhere trying to squeeze by in what I found to be fairly narrow lanes, but obviously they were wide enough. I couldn't believe the sheer number of people packing the streets. The only thing I can compare it to is Union Station during rush hour. It was all good though as I was still safely watching in awe from the bus.

Then the madness began. The bus dropped us at a hotel near Osaka Station. I knew that my hotel was a bit north-east of, and fairly close to Osaka Station, but I didn't have a map and I lost my sense of north-south somewhere on the bus ride. Needless to say I got myself hopelessly lost and spend nearly an hour wandering the streets of the immediate area searching for my hotel. But I wasn't just walking around, oh no. I had all my luggage in tow. A 25 lb bag on my back and two close to 60 lb suitcases, one for each hand. They had wheels but, they were still quite clumsy, and it was quite humid at the time which wasn't helping. I asked an old man for directions and he was able to point me in the right direction. Then with the help of a hotel worker from another hotel I was finally able to find the hotel.


The view from my room last night


To be continued...