Japan: Intro and Day One (Travel Day)

In October 2014, we started planning our trip to Japan.  This would be my first trip to Asia, and for Adam it was a long-overdue return. He had been stationed in Japan from 2001-2004 with the US Air Force. Once we'd booked our tickets we had started to plan - with only about a week in the country, where would we go? What would we see? It's always hard to pick and choose what you will dedicate your little bit of time to on a vacation, but in the end we decided to concentrate on Kyoto and Tokyo. Sadly, that meant that Adam wouldn't get to revisit his old stomping grounds up north in Misawa, but we are still holding out that we'll get back to Japan some day.

If you know me, you know I'm on a mission to experience everything Disney in the entire universe, so of course we spent some time at Tokyo Disneyland. I’ve done a recap of the Disney portion of the trip already because priorities. You can find that report here: http://www.mouseowners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101303

For this trip, we left our son home with his Grammy; something about a 3 year old on a 15 hour flight just didn't sound like fun. Wait, nothing about a 15 hour flight sounds like fun.  Anyway. Our dates were April 2 through April 13, 2015. We flew directly from Washington-Dulles to Seoul, Korea, then transferred to a relatively quick flight to Tokyo. 

Of all of our international trips, this one probably had the longest list of things I was nervous about. I was nervous about not only not speaking the language, but also not speaking anything CLOSE to the language. I have some knowledge of French, which gives me a little bit of help with other Romance languages, but zero help with Japanese. I was nervous about seafood, which is predominant in Japanese cuisine, but which I do not eat. At all. I was nervous about chop sticks, because I'm pretty bad at using them. I was pretty scared about Japanese toilets. But the first fear I was going to have to face was that flight. I love to travel, but I hate flying. And I'm slightly claustrophobic. The idea that I was going to have to sit in one place with no fresh air or much room to stretch for fifteen hours while hurtling through the sky in a metal tube seemed like a basic nightmare. 

Grammy and our son dropped us off at the airport a few hours before our flight. It was hard to say goodbye to him knowing that this was the longest we'd ever been apart, and that we were going to be SO far away, but we knew he'd be in excellent hands. As far as grandmas go, Grammy is one of the best. Security was a relative breeze, and soon we were on our plane.

This was my first time flying Korean Air, and I'd heard that their service and amenities were legendary. They lived up to the hype. The only complaint I had was that the movie selection was a bit dull. I ended up watching Paddington (cute) and one of the Hobbit movies (meh) and then tried to get some sleep. Adam watched 6 movies - SIX - pretty much back to back. I was impressed.

While on the flight I frequently got up to stretch and get what little exercise you can get on a passenger plane.  I also realized I had forgotten the pack of plastic forks I had bought for this trip. Yes, I bought plastic forks for this trip, don't you judge me! I'm very uncoordinated! So I did what any rational person would do. I stole a fork from my meal tray.

Somehow, amazingly, we arrived eventually in Seoul. Despite my attemps to kep my circulation going, my legs did not remember how to leg and I wobbled my way to the Korean Air lounge to wait for out next flight to Tokyo.

This flight was scheduled on a 747, which I was really looking forward to since we booked seats on the upper deck. Sadly, the plane we got was still a 747, but we were seated in the very nose of the aircraft on the lower level instead. When I say we were in the nose, I mean it. The cabin around us sloped inwards right in front of us and it freaked. me. out. Did not like. At this point, I popped my two nighttime tylenol figuring they'd kick in right about the time we got to our hotel in Tokyo.

Customs on the Japanese side was an easy pass, and we made the last shuttle to our hotel! For such an incredibly long day, we sure hadn't done much (except commit theft in international airways). We were ready for sleep, and we were both out within minutes of hitting bed.

Up next: we do stuff and I have pictures to prove it!