Week 1: My First Days in Japan

Studying abroad was the first time that I had to travel by myself, especially to a different country. From having to plan my plane tickets to commuting to my hotel really required me to be more independent. I had no friends traveling with me to help, so it required me to ask questions to strangers, which does take some courage when I don't have that much confidence in my Japanese. It really made me push myself to solve the small problems that I would face. For example, I had a layover in Guam before taking another flight that would go to Japan. But unfortunately, both of the flights had a delay which messed up the time I had reserved for the hotel once I landed. So, I had to scramble to book another hotel, so I had somewhere to stay for the night.

Walking to customs in Haneda Airport terminal after landing.

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Keikyu Hotel

I unfortunately landed close to midnight in Japan which meant that the trains were no longer running anymore. I was able to book a hotel for the night at a place called Keikyu that was about 10 minutes away from the Haneda airport. I was able to book the hotel using an app called agoda and it costed about $150 for one night. I recommend having this app if you need to make a last-minute booking as a backup plan if your initial booking doesn't work out.

Here's a picture of the first meal I had in Japan that costed me 1000 yen. The value and quantity to how much I spent was really surprsing to me.