Jude is finally in Japan

Hello my dear friends,

Omata sei shimashita! Thank you for waiting. I have finally updated~~

This is a phrase Japanese use very often, especially in the hospitality industry. One thing I find funny about this phrase is that, whether or not the shop assitants have kept you waiting, they say it anyway. Well, I just want to say that it feels great to see smiles on the shop assitants' faces and seeing them willing to help at any time.

It's something that people in my country really need to learn. Maybe not to the Japanese standard, but at least not to shout at customers.

Thank you also for visiting this blog. From now on, I will be posting my photos and stories to share with you while I am in Japan. The start already has been adventurous, I am sure from now on, the stories may be more and more exciting. So please come often to keep track of my fun journey.

Please do leave a comment when you can, or a :) smile, anything you leave keeps me writing.

First of all, congratulations to me for getting to the dormitory successfully from the airport. It took me 1.5 hrs to reach the destination including 3 transits and a lot of walking. By the time I arrived the airport, I started to pull out all my Japanese words from the bottom of my brain word bank and trying to assemble them into sentences they may hopefully understand. Gratefully I still haven't forgotten all and was determined to cast out all my fears and ready to take initiatives to speak to others before the trip.

From left, mum, cousin, me, aunt. At Taoyuan airtport ready to enter the custom.

This is me, tired and sweaty on the express airport train to Tokyo trying to squeeze out a smile.

Dada~~This is my room number. The name says Chiang Ping. I don't know why they left out the last character of my name. But I quite like it, sounds like champagne in Chinese. So now I have a new nickname-champagne!! Whoohoo~

Beware, this is a miracle. Look how much I have grown overnight! My head is almost reaching the top of the door!!!!!!.

The truth is--I decided to be in the photo so that you may see how low the door is. I am about 167cm tall and UNFORTUNATELY I didn't grow.

This the photo you have been waiting for! It's my room. Not very spacious compare to Australian size rooms, but it is BIG in Japan, pretty clean though. It's a twin room, suppose to have 2 people staying, but I am the only one staying here at the moment. Lucky$$

This is the sleeping bag I am using as a doona. I didn't want to buy a doona because they are puffy and heavy. This one isn't too heavy and can be put to use when I go travelling around Japan.

Dorm life is fun, and I have met many friends here. Breakfast and Dinner are provided, and meal times are fabulous for meeting with others in the dorm. People are quite friendly here, most people are from China but with some Japanese, too.

Bathrooms and toilets are shared, but actually not as bad as I thought. The best part is probably the public bath!! It has two public bathrooms, each has a big bathtub filled with warm water. I tried it out yesterday, and luckily there wasn't anyone. I haven't gotten used to seeing others in the public bath, but slowly will definitely become accustomed to it. Taking a bath is such a highlight of my day yesterday, after walking 9 hours around the city, my legs felt extremely sore and numb. The minute I soaked in warm water, the tiredness immediately vanished away.

Start of the day, ready to go shopping. Typical Jude pose+smile.

This is the place that got me walking for 6 hours. There are about 10 similar shopping streets around the area. Shops are everywhere you go, and whatever you see, there is a temptation to bring the item home. Things are wrapped in a manner you just want to have them, hopefully everything!! But everytime I got tempted, I told myself only to buy what I need. There is only 20kg lugguage allowance sadly.

After hours of walking, I treated myself with this VERY VERY YUMMY food. It's preserved vegetable on stewed beef rice with pollock roe (明太子 meitaiko) mayonnaise. The food was so yummy I couldn't stop saying "yum" "wow" "mmm!!" the whole time I ate. It was definitely very fulfiling and satisfying!