My name is Rafael, I'm 27 years old, Mexican born in Mexico City. I have lived in different places like Pachuca, Estado de Mexico, New York, and Monterrey city. I have studied a major in Computer Science and I have worked in different places such as the United Nations and SAP corporate.
I consider a guy with a few hobbies but some of them kinda interesting for some people. I love traveling (that's why I'm making this blog), I love finding new places to eat, I love video games and I love learning about other cultures. Saying all that about me I would like to start with the first chapter of this blog "My first trip to overseas".
I remember when I was 16 years old and on Saturday night I was at my grandparent's house, as usual, watching TV, it was in 2008 and by that time the Olympics in Beijing were happening. I was watching the sports channel and they had this section showing the culture of some provinces in China and making some interviews about some weird things (at least at that time for me) that they had there.
I believe that was the moment when I fell in love with the Asian culture, what it comes to my mind about that section that day is too much about their temples, the dragon shows, the exotic food, and the traditional clothing.
So I put on my mind that year that someday I would visit China and that was an idea that I worked on for several years. In 2010 I met one of my bigger mentors in life his name is Arturo Coronado, I met him in the company I was working in Mexico City as a private English teacher. He is Mexican/American, he studied economics and he had worked for some companies in the US and for the government in Mexico but when I met him in Mexico he was running his own private school and company for translations.
After some months taking his class and knowing more about him, I started to follow him more, asking more questions and talking about my idea to go overseas, since he was an experimented traveler who has been in different countries and looked to know a lot about it. One day we were finishing the class and we started to talk so he brings me up an idea of how to save money for my trip and where to find cheap websites to book my flight, in addition, he advises me how to find cheap and safe hostels. I remember him telling me - if you don't do it now that you are young, you won't do it later.
I took those words very serious I guess because some part of me knew what he said was real, so I started to save money which wasn't an easy task especially if you are 19 and most of your resources are destinated to party or useless things but some way or another after a year I had enough money to book my flight. So I remember one day coming back to my house after work and go straight to the computer to find a good flight to China. I tried several dates but I couldn't find anything that cheap according to my bucket so I checked another website Arturo had recommended me before and oh, surprise I found this promo to flight to Tokio for around 500 USD which it was a good price in that time.
I had everything ready to go I just still having some issues, I didn't speak English that well by that time and I didn't know that much of Japan, so far I just knew that it is the most expensive city in the world, that not too many people speak English there and that there is big district called Akihabara destinated for videogames, electronics, and Manga. Anyway, I remember just putting the credit card on the computer and watching probably the most beautiful screen I have ever seen in my life "Your flight has been booked".
I booked my flight to arrive 2 days before my 21 birthday since I booked my flight 6 months in advance as I have been told to make it cheaper, you can imagine how excited I was. I had never visited another country so this was special in so many ways, every day was one day less in the calendar and one day closer to the date. I was almost in Japan but this time it was real. You will never experience that feeling again as your first trip overseas.
The day must come and it was that day Dec 11, 2014, and I was on my way to the airport with all this anxiety inside me but it was a good one. I was going to Japan, it was real and it was that day. We got the airport and my parents walked me to the security gate, I said bye to them and I disappear through that door. Now I was on my own in the airport waiting for my flight with one connection in New York and flight from there to Narita Tokyo. So after an hour, I heard this magic voice - Dear passengers this is the boarding call for flight D-171 to New York please approach the gate number D5. After 20 minutes waiting, I was able to board and finally, I was on the plane.
After four hours in the plane, I barely heard the pilot speaking, saying - we are going to land in about 10 minutes in JFK. I got this good anxiety, feeling like I wanted to jump from the plane because I wanted to get there already. We landed and the adventure started somehow, it was the first time that I was crossing migration. I remember the officer asking me - Did you bring any food with you? but I didn't get it the first time because I was kinda nervous and there is too much noise in the line. Somehow I was able to pass migration and I was free to go to the gates zone for the next five hours.
Long layovers are difficult, especially if you don't have data on your phone and you don't have a lot of music with you or a good book to read, so I walked all over the place about three times and I ate in two different restaurants. After four hours waiting in the airport, I decide to go to my gate to wait there the last hour, the gate was packed, there are too many people and most of them were Asian. So once again there was a voice calling us to be ready to board but this time to my final destination.
Something is important to mention is that the flight from JFK to Tokyo takes about twelve hours since I didn't want to miss anything I chose all my sits on the window side because I didn't want to miss anything during my flight but after 8 hours sitting you start to feel like you want to move and you want to strengthen your legs. Usually, you go to the bathroom or you stand up in the hall but when you are in the window and the people besides are sleeping it is very hard to do that. So I would say the last four hours were kinda stressful somehow. But everything worth it when in the eleventh hour we hear once again the Capitan speaking (this time in Japanese first and English after) We are about 30 mins to arrive at Narita Airport.
We were almost there and the adventure was about to start.....
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| This was a picture taken taking in the middle of somewhere |
