Plane Thoughts

Currently I'm on a plane to Tokyo! Us (meaning the other NSLI-Y scholars and I) have a three hour layover in Tokyo before boarding another plane to Seoul. I am BEYOND excited to go back to Japan. It's only three weeks shy of a year since I returned from the country that changed my life. It's going to be indescribably nostalgic to walk through the airport. After I leave the plane I'll see the same "Welcome to Japan" sign that greeted me last year, and it's just...it'll be crazy, haha. Deja vu much? Anywho, I can't wait to speak some Japanese, and I'm dying to pick up a bottle of Oi Ocha (the green tea I drank like, every day last summer).  Orientation in New York City was pretty swell! On July 1st I left my house at 4AM to go to the airport and catch my 7AM flight. There I met four other NSLI-Y students, all from the Houston area. We flew to North Carolina, waited a short half-hour layover (thank goodness there were no delays on the first flight!) and then took another short flight to Newark, New Jersey, where we took a shuttle bus to NYC. There were some students already there, so we mingled a bit and then I got settled into my room...which was...ah...terrible, to be quite honest. Columbia University's campus is gorgeous, but the dorms (or at least the building we stayed at) are in very poor shape...extremely old and dirty, peeling paint and walls that were once white were now a sketchy brownish-gray color. And don't even get me started on the restrooms. But other than the accommodations I had a fantastic time! My roommate, Jenna, was super awesome and she's from Hawaii, so we talked a lot about the differences between Hawaii and Texas and it was pretty cool. After getting somewhat settled we went to the campus plaza and chilled with the other exchange students and played icebreaker games. It was super weird seeing everyone from the Facebook group in "real life", haha. After dinner and icebreaker games, groups of us walked around New York (we had to stay within ten blocks of Columbia, though), and we got bubble tea and just walked around after being on planes all day, haha. Then we went back to the dorms and played card games, haha. Everyone is super chill and overall a fantastic bunch-I'm really enjoying getting to know everybody! The next day we had a pretty standard exchange orientation type presentations. As this is my second foreign exchange, I was pretty familiar with all the things they talked about regarding language-learning, being foreign, etc, but they had some fantastic Korea-specific tips that I'm quite grateful for. We also listened to a presentation by a representative from the U.S. State Department (who sponsored our scholarships), and two alumni, Elaine (NSLI-Y Korea Summer 2011) and Dmitri (NSLI-Y Semester 2011, and returning for an NSLI-Y Korea Year soon) gave presentations and talked about their experiences. We had a Q and A with them and Seohyun, a really sweet Korean girl who's one of our representatives in Seoul. It was really informative and I'm glad they were there to give us advice and such! I ended the night by going out for dinner with a few of the other students (Cat, Navya, Kate, and Christine) to Tom's Restaurant, which is apparently the restaurant that they filmed Seinfeld in! I never watched the show, so I was unaware, but that was pretty cool anyway, haha. Then we walked around somewhere and then went back to the dorms.  The next morning was our flight to Korea! The sun rises a lot earlier in New York than I'm used to in Texas, so I woke up at like six-thirty ish. I re-arranged and re-packed my suitcases (TSA totally messed them all up. -_-), grabbed a quick breakfast at the Columbia cafeteria, snapped a few photos of the campus, and then at 9:30 we all left by shuttle bus to the airport. Our flight from NYC to Tokyo takes 13 hours-I've got exactly 7 and 1/2 left. This airplane is AMAZING. You see, I was really dreading the long flight, especially because I flew with Delta last year to Japan and it was horrible-the plane was old, and there were no tvs or anything. I've been pleasantly surprised here though! Not only is the Delta staff super friendly, but each seat has an individual tv, filled with games/music/tv episodes/movies...and GOOD ones, too! I spent the first ten minutes or so of my flight trying to nap (I had a huge headache), but then they served the first meal and my headache went away after that. The airplane food isn't fabulous, but it wasn't horrible either. Then, I watched The Incredibles, and then some Korean movie called Always, which was about this blind girl falling in love with this ex-boxer security guard dude who risked his life in some underground ring to get money so she can have a surgery to regain her eyesight...it was a typical Korean drama, haha.  And so, here I am. I've got Good Time by Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen playing on my iPhone while I sip apple juice and type up this lengthy blog post. I'm feeling really great. In the past few days I've met some fantastic people and I've already made great memories. I can't wait for what's yet to come! From 34052 feet in the sky somewhere above Canada's Yukon province (according to my tv), until next post! -Grace