En Route to Tokyo

Friday October 16h, 2009
En Route to Tokyo!

We’ll its official, we’re definitely on our way! The last 72 hours has been nothing less than a whirl win of goodbyes, ending of jobs, last minute errands and packing. Monday was closing at the Oarweed followed by the always exciting end of the season party. I was surprised by my friends (aka the best friends in the world) with a cake frosted to look like the globe with candles on all of the countries that I will be visiting. It was wonderful-- did I mention I have the best friends in the world? We continued to celebrate closing day until late in the evening. Tuesday morning I woke and started to actually believe my time in Ogunquit was quickly coming to an end. I went to Cove Café for my last breakfast shift of the season and since it was rainy, cold and clear that there were no tourists left in the state of Maine I got to leave a little early at 10am. I made a quick stop by the Oarweed to my very last goodbyes to the people who have made my time in Ogt so great the past four years, and of course to deliver to the order of breakfast sandwiches that they had just ordered. By 11am I was back at home, busy folding the countless loads of laundry that I had done the night before and trying to lay everything out on my bed in some kind of order. I had one last long shower in my shower of dreams, loaded my car and was off to start my adventure. I made stops in Kittery, Portsmouth and even Woburn to pick up some last minute essentials. I made a stop at my aunt and uncles house in Woburn and was able to spend the evening in the company of my dad’s whole side of the family. It was great to catch up with everyone (my aunt and uncle, my cousin colleen, her husband Chris as well as their two little boys, Cameron and Colby, my cousin Erin and her husband Matt, and my grandma.)! It was great to see the family, and inform them about my blog and skyping abilities- sounds like I may be talking with my uncle Jimmy more the next few months that I do when we live 100 miles from each other!
Wednesday seemed to fly by. I slept till 10am, which I later regretted, but felt at the time it was necessary since I have been functioning on so little sleep the past month and wanted to rest up a little before my trip. I spend the morning finishing copying my important documents (passport, license, health insurance cards, credit cards) and putting it into two packets. One that I can leave at home for my parents in case I run into a problem and they need to access any of my information as well as a copy for myself in case anything gets lots or stole (lets just hope they don’t get lost or stolen together). I like to be prepared for the worst but hope for the best, we‘ll see what happens on this adventure! The afternoon flew by quickly as I ran around getting last minute items like picking up my malaria medicine from Walart, buying toiletries, new sneakers, and snacks. I was able to squeeze in a little time to see the people in Amherst who mean the most to me. I visited my grandma at her condo, grabbed a coffee with Sam at Starbucks (who surprised me with a bag of goodies which have already come into good use on my flight… thanks Sam!), and a wonderful last meal at the Olive Garden with Kaily. I spend the evening attempting to pack and organize my life. Around 2am I realized that I was missing a few things and made a last minute to Wal-Mart. Knowing I needed to leave the house at 4:15am to make it to Logan in time for my flight I quickly tired to finish up all of the things on my to-do list. My mom popped her head in my bedroom and screamed when she realized that I was still not packed and hadn’t yet showered. She seemed very surprised, although this is very common for me and it should have come to no surprise to her. Judging her my reaction I knew I had to quickly get my act together. I jumped in the shower and quickly got ready. I finished packing my bags to the brim and we were out the door by 4:30am (I thought that was very impressive, although my mom was aggravated). I drove all the way down to Logan and we arrived by 5:30am. I waited a bit for Jess to arrive then we entered the hectic United Airways check-in. A lady came up to us claiming that she could check us in. Of course I was the first passport that she grabbed and mine instantly had a problem that she didn’t know what to do about. Jess checked in just fine. I had to speak to another agent who finally got a boarding pass to print for me, although the agent could only seem to print the ticket from Boston to Chicago and not the ticket from Chicago to Tokyo, (Jess got her tickets all the way to Tokyo no problem). We asked the lady at check in if we could carry on our backpacks. She said we could, however as we entered security they yelled at us and sent us back to check-in our bags. We entered had to put our packs in big plastic bags then re re-enter a line to speak to an agent. Jess had no problem checking her bag in, but it took a few minutes longer for me, since I only had my ticket to Chicago, not straight through to Tokyo- just my luck. Finally we re-entered the security line and did all of the usual requirement, took off our shoes, I had to take my laptop out of the case, etc. I was worried because I had my toiletries bag in my carryon with numerous bottles of liquids (definitely not following the TSA’s 3-1-1 requirements that everything needs to be under 3oz and fit in 1 quart size bag. It just wasn’t going to happen for me, my stuff was just too packed in my bag, I said a little prayer as I put my bags through the x-ray machines and much to my surprise no one seemed to care! With all of the hold up and delays Jess and I only had about 10 minutes before our flight boarded. We decided to make a quick pit stop going to the bathroom one last time and grabbing a breakfast snack at Au Bon Pain. We boarded the plane and I fell asleep before we even got on the runway. Although I had a window seat I couldn’t seem to get comfortable kept waking up, but that didn’t stop me from repositioning and falling right back to sleep. We had about an hour layover in Chicago in which Jess and I tried to walk around the terminal as much as possible, We checked out of food options and enrolled with United frequent flier program (we should get a free US flight after traveling such a long distance with this airline-- oh and also if you’re a college grad and send in a college transcript you get like 10,000 extra miles or something, someone remind me to do that when I get home!). I grabbed a sandwich from Chilies to go worried that I would be famished on my 14 hour flight to Japan. Luckily that hasn’t been a problem at all. I’m currently still on board with about 30 minutes to go. I am pleased with the amount of sleep I was able to get despite being in a middle seat. Reality has officially hit Jess and I. We are the only Americans on the plane that we’ve seen to far. All of the announcements and packing of the food is in Japanese. Despite us standing out being the minority everyone has been really nice to us so far. The flight attendants switch to English when they offer us meals and always make sure to translate to us when we have that confused look on our face. The seats on the plane are average. We have personal TV’s which is nice, there are about 20 movie options somre are in Japanese and some are in English. I had high hopes that I’d get to watch “The Proposal” but after finishing out it was in Japanese with English subtitles I decided that my eyes were too heavy to read and watched “My Sisters Keeper” and cried my eyes out- what a good movie. We’ve been fed two meals so far. The first was really good in my oppinion I had terrikki chicken with rice, Jess had the salmon with veggies. We both were served noodles with soy sauce on the side. We watched the man sitting next to us slurpe them down noisily (meaning that they are tasty in Japaneses) but nearther of us were brave enough to try- mostly because it was the very beginning of our trip and the idea of laundry seems like a very distant thought. On our tray we also had a bottle of water and a piece of bread. The flight attendants have been offering alcohol all morning so we decided to split a bottle of wine. For dessert we were each given mini Hagendas ice cream cups, they were great! It did the trick for me and with a fully belly I fell right back to sleep. Upon walking up I decided I needed to read and get rid of the 3 magaine I took with me. They are making my very small carry on seem even smaller and will definitely not be coming off the plane . A while later I decided to eat my chilies turkey sandwhich because I was worried it was going to go bad without being refrigerated for so long. It was very tasty. I then watched “The Hangover” and relaxed falling in and out of sleep. A few hours later another meal was served. I didn’t like this one as much and was glad I was still pretty content from my sandwhich. I did decided to be adventurous and try everything (you’d be proud mom and dad) The main course was called (at least I think I heard) Japanese BBQ although it reminded be of nothing of American BBQ. The main dish had shredded carrots, murshrooms, and some kind of unidentifiable root like veggie that was pretty bland and tasteless. The bottom on the dish had rice. We also were given a fruit cup and some tuna fish which I enjoyed as well as Malinos cookies. Jess and I cheers and shared a bottle of champaign.

I spend my remaining two hours writing this blog entry, filling out my customs form and resting up for my exciting day ahead of us. I’ve been taking my “no-jet-lag” pills and seem to be in pretty good shape. Japanese time is currently 1:15pm on Friday afternoon, and home time is 12:15am early Friday morning- which is quick a time change! I feel great now, we’ll see how I am tonight. We’ll were about to land and I need to attemp to stuff all of my belongings back into my carryon somehow. We are unsure exactly how to get to our hostel from the airport, but are going to attempt to pick up our Japanese rail pass from the ticket agent in the airport and go from there. Here’s the the start of our adventure! Stay tuned, I’ll be updating frequently.