I was checking onto my flight, mentally reducing the weight of my bag, and hoping it was under the weight limit. Since I had shoved the last few items in that morning, I figured it HAD to be over weight. I gave the ticket lady my passport and start through the pocket of my bag for the itinerary printout when I hear a mildly shocked “you’re kidding”. I stop the hunt for the paper and a million scenarios run through my mind. Is my bag that over weight? What if its my passport? Please don’t let there be something wrong with my passport. Maybe their computer is having trouble reading it. In the 1.5 seconds it takes for all of this to stream through my thoughts, she follows it up with ‘you have my name’. Tilting my head in genuine curiosity, all those scenarios disappear in a cartoon cloud of dust. We proceed to chitchat about how strange that I happened to end up in her line, when she looks back at my passport, then to me and starts to laugh. Tilting my head in question again, she clarifies ‘and we have the same birthday. Not the same year, but the same day and month’.

Once on the plane to Japan, knowing very little of the native language and with big plans to travel and sight see, I start to question how prepared I was. It turns out though, I wasn’t the only one on the plane with the “let’s wing it” view of language. With a sparse plane, I had a row to myself. Forehead pressed to the plane window, sprawled across two seats, looking down on the turquoise water of what I told myself was an uncharted island, I had my playlist for traveling drifting me into a whole story of castaways on that island. My fantasy was interrupted by a quick tap on my shoulder. Venesa, an Aussie taking a few weeks of her school break to go visit Japan, was in the row directly behind me, and thought that I looked to be a bit adventurous, and wanted to see what I had plan for my excursions. An hour later she had taken photos of my tablet and notebooks on her iPhone, and we were discussing the Mayan ruins she visited. We bonded a bit over the fact that neither of us knew that much Japanese. I downloaded a number of programs, and have picked up the very basics to get around town. (Your standard Hi/Bye, Please/Thank you/Excuse me,) and thanks to Naomi, learned to count to ten. (I owe you one Naomi, since that will come in very handy when finding train platforms.)

I had my first “crash course” today, going into the massive 7and i, (a 7eleven that rivals super Wal-Marts and is more like a 3+ story mall,) in search of food for the week and a notebook for my upcoming teacher training. It was somewhere in the rice isle that I started to panic. What was I doing!? I have no idea if that is a cooking sauce or a whole meal in the packet with the cartoon yellow rabbit smiling at me. And how do I find something that I know how to cook? I start to laugh (since really when I’m starting to have anxiety, what can you do about the situation but laugh it off,) and decide to put on my big-girl-adventurer pants and do what I can to find food, and pull it together and be willing to try something new. I decide on the minute noodles with the shrimp on the picture, and go in search of the other items on my list, agreeing to settle for the cultural equivalent. With the help of free WiFi and Google translate, I decided to stuff my pride and ask for help. The lady stocking shelves was very nice as I gesture to my phone with the translation of one of the items on my list, and am whisked off into the middle of the store. Once all my items had been gathered, I aim for the checkout. Turns out there are a lot of questions at a checkout counter that we take for granted when they are in our language. There was a question about getting a bag, and a surcharge for using a credit card. I can only hope that what I was understanding and agreeing to was what I thought it was.

My second challenge was the notebook. This I was a little better prepared for, but had to wonder around the store none the less. Saying the equivalent of “excuse me, notebook, where?” while miming writing on my hand I was directed from one store to another, with one girl knowing enough English to help me out. Before long I was in the stationary store.
My adventures of the day were successes and I learned about a dozen more words. I have high hopes for this adventure.

Update: I would like to recommend Byki Express for a free language learning program. If you need to learn it fast and be able to get the basics to get around, its the best program I’ve found.