15th September

Reaching Tokyo Narita Airport
I slept for two hours. Now it was 4:30 a.m. on my watch, but when I looked through the window, the sky was so bright with white cloud and sunshine. It was 6:30 Tokyo time, and there were two hours to go. Flight attendants delivered breakfast, which was greasy and oily. Imagine how we could have breakfast by sitting for nearly five hours without washing face, brushing teeth, or going to toilet. However, I tried to eat as much as I can. I almost couldn’t withstand that feeling and nearly threw up. Thanks goodness, I saw the territory of Japan as well as Narita airport for the first time! At 8:30, we landed on Narita airport and completed entry procedures for two hours. Our journey in Japan began…

First sight in Tokyo
We headed to Asakusa view hotel on a big bus with our coordinator as well as Japanese-Khmer translator, Ms. Duong Danich and another coordinator, Ms. Sato. Today the sky was cloudy with very light rain. The scenery of highways in Tokyo primarily came to our sight. Driving on the left, huge trucks, small vans, green plants on the sideways, high buildings, railroads, on bicycle, no motorbike, Tokyo Disneyland, etc., were the first attrations we witnessed along the highway to Asukusa view hotel. Borng Danich did a little self-introduction and informed us what we were going to do at the hotel especially the orientation at 2:30.


Reaching the hotel, we were given the room card and a Chinese food box for each participants. The bag we would take to Akita and a JICE T-shirt were kept in the room. Sun Meng and I was roommate again, and we would stay together till the end of program. The first thing I did was going to bathroom. Then I sat on the sofa and had lunch comfortably, but I could feel myself still in high temperature and absolutely worn out. Without any rest, Sun Meng and I went to other rooms to call our friends to be at the orientation quickly.

Orientation at Asakusa View Hotel

The start of the orientation was the introduction of Mr. Nagoyama, one of the staff of JICE, Ms Yamada, responsible for JENESYS program, and 6 coordinators, two of whom were Ms. Yamazaki and Ms. Duong Danich, who coordinated our Akita group. It was the lecture on Japanese society and culture by Professor Ms. Hisami. After that it was the general orientation of the program in Japan and we received a small handbook with detailed timetable and places description inside. Ms. Eang Lina, one of the coordinators, explained the activities of home-stay and workshop.

Unluckiess in the first evening
At 3:30, it was group orientation. What a pity of me that I was not allowed to participate in this evening activities because of high body temperature. I missed the chance of visiting Asakusa Sensoji and Nakamise street and was told to take a rest at the hotel. Therefore, I went back to my room, took a fever tablet, and slept for two hours. Another participant, Yuth, had the same problem like me, so he didn’t go either. At 7:00 p.m. Sun Meng brought a box of two skewers of grilled chicken and a box of tasteful rice from Nakamise restaurant. He told me that they had visited 100-yen shop and bought a lot of food and drinks. So unlucky was I!