Day 1


We arrived at Narita Airport in Tokyo on Tuesday, May 13th around 3:00 PM after a 14-hour flight from Denver, following an early morning departure from Nashville. I had stayed awake to better adjust to the time zone, but the exhaustion hit once we landed. At first, it didn’t feel like a different country—I was focused on getting to the hostel.

We took a one-hour train into the city, where I noticed that most signs were in both Japanese and English—an intentional strategy to accommodate international tourists. After checking into our hostel, we visited a local grocery store called Summit. It was my first taste of Japanese convenience culture. The food was fresh, high-quality, and the store was clean and well-organized. Unlike in the U.S., convenience stores in Japan are treated as essential, not low-end. 

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