I'm HERE!

I just got my Internet connected today. YAH! Life has not been the same without it. It has been a whole week and a half with out the WWW. But now I'm complete!

Life has been crazy from the flight over here till last night even. On my flight here we had an emergency landing in Anchorage, Alaska because one of our flight attendants hit her head on something and was going in and out of consciousness. Our trip to Alaska was quick. We dropped of the injured attendant, re-fueled and then we went back on our way to Tokyo. Needless to say it added a couple of hours to an already long flight.


This is a picture outside my window seat from inside the plane of the attendant going into the ambulance.

When I got to the airport there was a Japanese woman with my name and another guy's name on a card. She welcomed us to Tokyo and got us on our way to our apartment called E-Village. On the way there I got to know David from Texas who is a drummer in my show who actually have been here before and is on his 2nd contract doing MOM(Minnie Oh Minnie). He has been a big help to me teaching me alot about life here in Japan and at Disney.

Upon my arriving, I had orientation for 2 days and then jumped right in to vocal rehearsals. Being extremely Jet lagged had to be the worst part of my first week. All my rehearsals are done with a translator. She is really cool. She is actually Japanese but lived in MEXICO most of her life and went to college in English. She has been so great to me and my only outlet of communication besides the occasional hand jester and panamine that goes a long way here. It is a weird experience though cause simple explanations take a long time to get across due to language barrier and even music terminology that the translator has trouble understanding. But it has been pretty smooth. They are very anal about everything. From on how I hit a note to how I walk to a certain spot in the choreography. But it has been a blessing to be able to speak Spanish and to know how to dance. I have been picking up the choreography really quick and moving fast giving me alot of time to go over and over it.

Since I have been here. I have had 2 days off. I had my first Sunday and yesterday off. Sunday I made my way to church. It was an English ward that is about an hour way on the subway that met at 9 am. It is also meets in the same lot as the Temple. I met one girl there that works for Disney also but she leaves in a month. But there is another LDS guy that got here a couple of days ago from BYU. So we should be able to go to church together for the next two Sundays I have off then I will have to work on Sunday, which sucks. I tried to get it off but it was impossible. I do get Monday's and Tuesdays off. I'm still going to try to work something out once I get my schedule. I should be able to hit the first hour of church or something. I did get invited to dinner by this older missionary couple after church. It was really nice of them. They also gave me some advice and maybe my first really good meal in TOKYO.


The Chapel


The Tokyo Temple right next to the chapel

Other then that. I have been in rehearsals and have been trying to meet new people. I did get to meet some Aussie girls that live on my floor. They are all princesses and gorgeous. I actually went out with 2 of them along with David and another drummer named Louis that is in our cast to GINZA last night, the fashion area of Tokyo. We went to dinner and then a Latin club. I danced the night away with Lauren who found a new love of Latin dancing. We had a really good time. I also got to go to COSTCO yesterday before I left for GINZA with Josh who went to BYU and was in Crazy For You with me. He has also been a good help when I got here. He took me shopping my first night and showed me the way. I got the essentials at COSTCO; laundry detergent, a towel and CHIPS AND SALSA! I felt like a kid in a candy store. I never knew I would be so excited to see a COSTCO.


Josh and I eating COSTCO food after a long shopping hour for American food!

My apartment is awesome. I love living in my own place. I also got to decorate it Little with somethings I found in the DOZO pile which is a designated area in the lobby of E-Village where people who are leaving dumped stuff off they don't want to take with them. Dozo is Japanese meaning "go ahead." The stuff in the pile is free for the taking. So instead of wasting money on stuff that I would just give away after my contract I just found everything in the DOZO pile. Needless, to say everything is kinda random.


This is me in a pose(for one of my numbers in my show) in my apartment.


My Bathroom. Got most of this stuff at the Japanese equivalent $1 store called the 100 yen store.


View from the outside of my front door of my apartment. Down the street is the Tokyo Bay where I would like to go for my morning jogs.


Before I retire this blog there are a couple of things that are different that I have to get used:

People wait at crosswalks here until the green light designates to walk. Which is very different from NYC

There is Absolutley no picture taking in Disney....so it will be hard to get pics of me in costume and stuff but I bet with time that will change :) I'm a rebel!

At escalators people wait on the left side leaving room for others to walk up on the right which is opposite of what we do in America. It could be the fact that they also drive on the opposite side of the road...which also makes crossing the street interesting when you don't know which way the cars are coming from :)

The food is very interesting. So far I noticed that most everything is fishy. I learned how to say chicken in Japanese really quick. I have been eating alot at WENDY'S and KFC which are both right down the street from where I live. Now, that I have been grocery shopping I have been eating better. Just had a quesadilla with guacamole and salsa earlier :)


I found these lovely dead creatures at my local grocery store. YUM :/

That's it for know. I'll talk to ya'll later.