Day 282 (Osaka) : Delayed jet lag

It's weird, when I first got back to Japan I felt pretty much on schedule. I got home a few hours early thanks to the lady at the service window in Narita. We were both confused by my itinerary which said I would land in Haneda instead of Narita, so she put me on the first plane out to Itami at 4:20pm instead of having me hang around until after six like the original plan. I got home, cleaned up, watched a little tv and went to sleep. Really, no big deal. But last night I didn't have any urge to sleep at all. I ended up staying up till almost 6 am bouncing back and forth between watching streaming videos on line to trying out the new game I got for Chrishmish.

At first I was worried that staying up all night last night would mean that I would have a hard time sleeping tonight, which is important since school is tomorrow. To my surprise, I'm am dead tired. I've been completely burned out since about 5:00pm. The only reason I'm hanging around to make this post is because I want to get my schedule adjusted as quickly as possible. Luckily I'm in tip top shape, aside from the whole being exhausted thing. It's a real testament to my fortitude seeing as how 90% of the plane was sneezing, coughing, and showing every possible sign of the man bear pig flu.

About half way through my flight I started to get a little sore throat action going on, but that passed as soon as I got out into fresh air. it really boggles my mind how hunds of people can get in a big metal tube and breath the same recycled air for 14+ hours. It's one of the most disgusting feelings I have experienced. It just feels like you're covered in a layer of other people's muggy breath. But I guess that makes the first shower when you get home all the more relaxing.

I caught up with Cho from my class and she says that tomorrow will just be home room. We'll meet up at 10 and finish as soon as the teachers tell us whatever it is they need to tell us. There should be no real lessons or studying until Friday.

Mobile Entry : Nikuman

I had nikuman (肉まん) for dinner tonight. It's hella convenient because you just put a little water on it and microwave it. These meat buns are both tasty and cheap, great for students like myself.

Day 280 (Covington, Roanoke, O'Hare, International) Traveling

My sister, Marie, and her bf, Cory, volunteered to drive us out this morning in the frigid cold. I'm not sure about VA but when I landed in O'Hare it was supposed to be 2 degree fahrenheit. I forgot just how cold winter can become. Despite the recent attempted terrorism act on that one plane by that one banker's son, things went pretty normally at Roanoke Airport.

I checked my bag, a TSA guy came and inspected it and put it on the rollers heading for the plane. After that I just had to walk up the steps and go through the typical routine of seperating everything I have into different plastic bins and throwing it through the detector. The people in Roanoke airport were a helluva lot more polite than the TSA people in Dulles.

The only hitch I ran into was not receiving the tickets to Itami. I only received the first ticket for the first hop. When I asked the lady at the United counter in O'hare she said that I was at the right gate and my plane was still on schedule, but she couldn't give me the ticket for Narita until later. Don't ask me why that is, I can't even guess. She had a stack of tickets in front of her and she didn't so much as look at them.

Blogging across fourteen time zones gets confusing because I kind of lost a day, so I'll have to split up my travel experience over two days to get a proper spread. Nothing too exciting to report though.

Day 279 (Covington, VA) : T minus one day

I'm writing the entry for January 2nd in Concourse 1, Gate C10 of O'Hare on a dying battery. Unlike Dulles this airport has not upgraded the additional power outlets to support mobile PC users such as myself. The other reason I'm doing this update "offline" is because I was hit with my first spam bomb after trying to use the free service offered by Google at Dulles airport.

So as not to cut into today's actual entry I will be sticking to what we did on Saturday, which was a whole lot of nothing. I hung out at the house shooting the breeze with my family until we rode out to catch my plane at 3:00am the next day. What was interesting for me was finding out that both Pizza Hut and Burger King have been running out of supplies for food. On this particular day BK was out of the new funnel cake snack food everyone wanted to try and some component of their swiss cheese melt.

I feel like I was able to get alot of the things I got for Christmas packed, but everything I had pulled out of storage before that ended up left in piles in my room. I can't complain too much since the luggage is already a huge pain to carry. When I left I had the advantage of dragging it through early morning traffic. When I land on Monday at 7:00pm it will be packed on every train until I get back to my apartment. I'll update more then.

I haven't really looked through the pictures yet either some I'm just going to post some of the snow shots and look through the rest after I get back to my own apartment.

Day 278 (Covington, VA) : SSDY - The New Year edition

These eighteen or so days that I've been working out in the States have been quite productive and good for my finances. I've managed to pass my car over to Justin, canceled the car insurance that I've been paying to keep it garaged for the last two years and change, started an epic battle with Aetna over the insurance policy they've been charging me for since I lived in Cha'ville, and found an unexpected windfall in the form of a life insurance check from my father that I must have over looked since 2002.

I even lucked out finding my expired debit card in time to have it expedited here since the bank had shipped my new card out to the FPO address I had a year ago. That problem is very similar to Aetna's, "We didn't know we couldn't provide you with insurance so we kept charging you for nothing," stance. It boggles my mind that in this day and age companies can say, "But, but, but we didn't know you moved to another country. It's not our responsibility, blah, blah, blah." I think any company that is charging almost $100 a month should have the common courtesy to send out reminders and bi-annual notifications of subscription. Progressive is smart enough to do that. You get reminders that you're six month payment cycle is coming to an end and if you don't verify payments, they stop charging you. Simple, right? Aetna is just a shiesty insurance company that serves as a perfect example of what is wrong with the health system in America. I hope the government just tears it all to the ground and put a completely new system in it's place.

I was finally able to talk to Yuko's sister for the first time since we had lunch way, way back in the day. I think my Japanese still sucks so I can't express myself well but it was good to try. I have only done one page of the twelve or so pages of homework that my teachers assigned for the winter vacation. I thought it was bogus that the teachers handed out so much work knowing half the students would be returning to their home countries for the holidays. I won't really start trying to do it until I get back to Japan on the 3rd, probably the 4th by the time I wake up.

I was planning to attach some of the pictures from my trip to this first entry but it's late here and my brother is still trying to find the pictures between the three cameras that him and his wifey used the last few days.