The start of a long journey which was full of many problems. First off starting with check in online. Coral managed to check me, her and Issie on the first leg of the flight, but not the second. After panicking and several phones calls, we discovered there was some error which meant we were unable to check in. The next morning we were able too though. So yayyee.

Bag bursting with clothes and there were still things I had to leave behind, we headed off. Meeting at the airport was amusing and easy. With parents in toe we all pull our bags in but not before hundreds of photos. Or attempts as my dad is unable to take photos on mum's phone.

The wait was easy and the first leg of the journey went mostly to plan. Have to say it was a lot less strict than most airlines I've been on. A few people getting a scare when we moved backwards without warning. (Tom)

On this flight I discovered a few things which I hadn't know before. Issie is scared of take-off. Terrified. Literally. She can't look out of the windows. Once in the air though she was fine. If a little bored.

Second thing. Both Tom and Coral were in their primary school chess clubs and proceed to play a good two hours of intense chess. Neither of which was giving up for anything.

Getting on to the second plane was easily done, if not a bit of a trek. But by the second plane we were all tired and it was showing. Words were slurring and tempers were easily broken. Including complaining about people who put their chairs too far back. Miserable air hostesses and terrible pasta. My screen broke in the first hour, not that I minded as I kept myself entertained with sudoku.

Coral managed to fall to sleep for most of the trip as did Chantelle. I managed to get about 4 hours sleep, in between turbulence and screaming babies. Issie, bless her, on the other hand got about one hours and had to face plane turbulence on her own while Coral and I slept beside her. Woops/

Eventually, after what felt like a lifetime, we landed. The pilot didn't seem to know where to park so we ended up taxing on the plane for another half hour. Getting thought immigration was interesting.

Issie managed to fill the forms in wrong, half asleep as she was and got screamed at by some scary Japanese woman. Then a much nice translator informed us that the form we were told we needed to get at japan, we were supposed to get in England. Err... Hopefully the university will have another way for us to get the form.

I had my first full conversation in Japanese with the Visa lady and everything when smoothly. The four of us staying for the year received our residence cards, which look fantastic. We arrived at the baggage terminal to find the bags already waiting for us and processed through customs to the train station.

The trains were fun to navigate. (Issie strongly disagrees with this but with 4 hours sleep in 48 hours, I don't blame her.) The first train was easily enough done. It took us about 45 minutes and we had no real problems. Chantelle at this point was falling asleep on Tom. The changeover was where things got interesting.

We couldn't actually work out where to buy the ticket to get our train. Coral, Issie and I debated following the arrows but Issie was insistence we had to get the ticket first. This ended up with her and Coral asking an attendant in Japanese where to go, after a minor debate on who should do it and he replied broken English. So there was no really point of debating who was going speak in Japanese. So we followed the arrows and about five minutes later got to the station.

Unfortunely there was no elevator and well, lots of heavy bags. Coral and Tom helped get all of them down and we were about to run on the train when the attendants stopped us because of the doors were shutting. As a side note, this train was decorated with pictures from transformers 4. :D So we got on the next train and off we went.

Once at Asakusa, mine and Coral's orienteering skills were tested to the max. I managed to get us in the right direction but the both of us were confused as to which road to go down. With me doubting her and her doubting me, we got a little lost. Sort off we were in the right place but confused. But a nice man noticed us looking very confused and pointed us in the right direction.

And finally we arrived at the hostel. I will go in to detail about the hostel tomorrow but yer. We had to take our shoes off before we came in the room. But while undoing my boots, I lost my balance and ended up ripping the leather ;(. (Going to try repair them but it is very unlikely) Next Issie discovered shampoo had exploded in her suitcase. And Coral and Tom got confused with buttons on the toilet. SO confused they missed the flush lever.

So. I hope you have enjoyed reading about our adventure, I'm starting as I mean to go on!

More soon. Night xx

p.s Coral has a ridiculous about of friends, within 24 hours of her posting we were off, 90 people had liked the picture. Some, admittedly our friends, but moistly hers.