First post from Virginia

Finally got the Internet connection up and about. Have spent about 2 days in UVa already and so far everything's going well. I'm bloody exhausted though, so not sure if I'll be able to do the long blog entry that I had originally intended (yes, lazy ass that I am).

So, had to rush for a flight at 6am, due to the fact that I almost botched up my travel timings and thus had no time to really do packing (thank goodness for the packing list). So off to the airport at about 4am, to find L'ing in jeans and a pair of glasses. This is, of course, momentous (for those who know her) and thus, a picture was taken when we reached JFK (more on that later). Will upload that later.

So, stopover in Narita. Nothing much there, put on a connecting flight to JFK. Turns out that Northwestern Airlines does NOT have personal in-flight entertainment units for flights from Tokyo to JFK, so good luck to all those taking this connecting flight.

Not much to talk about on the flights but in a nutshell slept a lot, got to watch the classic "Ice Princess" on the flight (how exciting) and slept more, slept on the connecting flight to Dulles airport in Washington. Got a lift down from Dulles to UVa the next day from a host family of L'ing. They've been great to us so I suppose they deserve the following paragraph:

Dan and Emily Carlton live near (in?) Charlottesville and they have an amazing house with 3 kids. Dan's a pastor at Spring Hill Baptist Church, leading a congregation of 400 (don't play play). They've got 3 lil' kids so Emily's a full-time housewife (as per every American stereotype soap - only without the drama). They've got 3 children - Frances, who's possibly the most articulate 7-year old I've ever met (but to be fair, I don't really know many 7 year olds); Allie, the younger daughter (4, I think) who's big on strawberries and Will, 8 months old, who gets terrorised by Jeremy when we were on our way down from Dan's place (where we stayed a night) in Emily's new Ford (or was it Chrysler?) SUV. Very sweet of them, and I hope the Möet Chandon champagne we got for them from Singapore helped to reciprocate some of the wonderful hospitality we received.

Yesterday was "Moving-In Day" in UVa, and particularly so at our dorms, the IRC (International Residents' Centre?). Long day of activities but this can be summarised as:

1. Getting room keys
2. Dumping stuff in room
3. Going out to explore nearby shopping places
4. Going gaga over Old Navy prices
5. Finding out Old Navy ridiculously cheap prices were there for sizes like 44 and upwards (yes that's waist 44) - i.e. the leftover rubbish
6. Eating lunch at the ridiculously greasy (and tasty) Five Guys Hamburgers and Fries
7. Walking around trying to find a line plan for L'ing and ending up gawking over the Motorola RAZR, going at $299 for a prepaid plan (very gian)
8. Buying a massive amount of crap such as pillows, blankets, bedsheets etc
9. Playing some get-to-know-you games with the folks in the IRC (out of which most of the names I don't remember except for the Singaporeans and a few people I actually had the time to talk to - thus realising that the majority of exchange students are actually from the UK and France)
10. Sleeping

Today was another day with a formal talk about legal status and Visa issues. Shortly after the talk, we met Jem's roommate Andrew (from the US of A) and his friend June (Joon? He's Korean). June summarised the talk in 3 words, "Don't fuck up". This was the most meaningful contribution of the day from anyone.

Too damn tired to go on any more, will have to blog tomorrow. Ack.