Day 1 - Already legendary ^^

After I took my flight in Moscow, I landed at the Narita Airport (Tokyo) 9.5 hours later. From there I was heartily welcomed bei Mika-san, a colleague of mine. So I felt very comfortable from the beginning of my being in Japan. She picked me up from the Arrival Zone and at first we had lunch at a noudle soup restaurant in the airport. It was awesome to eat a big bowl of Miso Ramen after a long flight. And the Gyoza we ordered were tasty too.

Afterwards we took a bus to Yokohama, the city where I will be most of the next 3 months. The ride took about 2 hours, so I could get a little bit sleep additional to my 3 hours in the plane from Moscow. I saw also a bit from the city and my first impression was that Yokohama is a really modern city with big skyscrapers and much industry.

some little packages of German sweets
for my co-workers as presents :)

Maruta-san picked us then up from the bus station. He is the head of the company Axis Network, where I will do my internship. He also welcomed me very heartly and was very open-minded from the first moment, so I didn't felt nervous when I got into the company. But of course, I made a mistake at the start ...... I entered the house with shoes. My street shoes! I see you guys right now facepalming and you're doing right. Of course, you have to get out of your street shoes and get into some shoes especially for the house. And I am honestly wondering why I forgot to do this. It was some of the first things I heard about Japan. Hmmm...... Maybe I was a liiitle bit nervous :D

Axis Network is a small company, so the atmosphere is very familial. As Mika-san and Maruta-san, everyone was in the first moment surprised that I am 2 meters tall which nobody expects by my asian look :) This is every time a good start to begin a conversation ;)

my apartment from the inside
(kitchen and bath are behind the camera)

So today I got the company and the people behind it. To the company has some internet stores at Amazon, Yahoo Auctions and so on. So they deliver technical stuff and moreto customers around the world. Simple, but great concept ^^
And the people are really, really nice. From what I saw, everyone loves their job and they do it with passion and fun. I think I will have a great time here :)

Especially Maruta-san talked with me a lot, for what I am really thankful. Because at this point, my Japanese is a good A-level, nothing more. So right now, a normal dialog in real life is quite hard. So I have to practice. And Maruta-san wasn't even tired to explaine his sentences again many times, because I didn't get them. So at the end of the day, this helped me a lot to get a real-life-use of Japanese. These hours were more worth than 3 weeks with a textbook ^^

7Eleven near my apartment

After the work which was for me today observing the company and practicing Japanese, Maruta-san drove me to 7Eleven to get food for the next days, especially this evening and he showed and explained me every detail of my flat. So as you maybe already mentioned, he is my hero for today together with Mika-san because she really calmed me down at the beginning with her open-minded nature and patience with me.

my first shopping from 7Eleven (Ramen, Soba, Onigiri),
should be okay for the next day :D

So right now I am full from a soba meal I bought from 7Eleven and refreshed from my first shower in Japan. And I'm really excited to see what the next day will bring :)