18 Hours of Daylight

Our plane boarded half an hour later than scheduled because the in-seat movie screens weren't working in the center 5 aisles. I guess 13 hours with nothing to look at except the headrest in front of you can be boring. I took advantage of the neat little setup and ended up watching some Without a Trace (during which I fell asleep), Shrek the Third, Everybody Hates Chris, a neat movie about the life of Vivien Thomas (starring Mos Def and Alan Rickman-- LOVE), and a depressing movie about a couple in which the wife comes down the Alzheimer's. I got halfway through Ocean's 13 when we went into final approach.

We were fed a snack half an hour into the flight, which was the normal soda and a bag of crunchy things. Lunch was around 12:30, and we got a choice between chicken or pork swimming in stir-fryish gravy alongside some sad green beans and rice. I honestly have had better Lean Cuisine. Served with it were a piece of what looked to be a cucumber roll and shrimp sushi, salad with creamy vinaigrette, and a conspicuously out of place dinner roll with margarine.

Soon after lunch, I curled up into my seat, put on some Without a Trace (his fake American accent fools nobody-- he is so obviously Australian), and fell asleep for the next three hours. At some point, the male steward reached over me and closed my window, which was a good move because the sun was high and bright for the whole trip.

When I came to, I felt strangely refreshed. I peeked out the window, and to my surprise I saw lots of snowy mountains. Knowing that we had to be long past Colorado, I loaded up the flight path. While I waited for it, I looked out the window, and noticed these huge, long, striped white trails that bisected the mountains and emptied into a wated body to the south. I had taken a physical geography class, so I immediately became excited.

GLACIERS! THOSE ARE FREAKING GLACIERS! :D :D :D :D

You hear about how large they are and you see pictures of them in books, but it's difficult to appreciate glaciers until you actually see them with your own eyes. And when Anchorage came along about an hour later, I had something to compare give a sense of scale-- they are GIGANTIC. It's amazing how big they are, and it's difficult to imagine 1. that they even formed at all, and 2. that they might be under threat of melting. That's pretty depressing to think about.

According to the flight path, they were the Bering Glaciers.

Around this time we got a little ham sandwich to tide us over until the next meal. There was nothing special about it, but it wasn't half bad tasting. About a two hours before landing we got pizza with a nice pastry-like crust.

At 2:15, we landed in Narita International Airport.



My mother told me horror stories about the lengthy line in which I would have to stand waiting to get through customs; this did not happen at all-- it took all of 2 minutes after retrieving my bags to turn in my cards and wait for my mother in the terminal.

Unfortunately, I had not studied the map of the terminal well before departure, nor did I feel adventurous enough to explore it throroughly because where I thought I was supposed to meet my mother ended up not being the place where I was supposed to meet my mother. Her flight arrived the same time that mine did, as hers was also delayed (our initial flights were supposed to get in simultaneously, too), and she and I waited in the terminal for each other for about an hour and a half. She was incredibly understanding, as she said that she asked many many airport workers where areas designated by the airport to meeting were, and they had no clue.

From there, we caught a Keisei train from Narita to Yawata. This was all fine and good, except they don't have escalators to get to and from the platforms. My mom is a persistent and strong-willed person, so when I told her I'd carry her bags for her she just snorted and hauled her stuff on her own. She broke her leg during the summer and I didn't want her to injure herself before her visit to Japan even began, so I would run my stuff up or down the stairs, set them down, run back to meet my mom, grab her stuff, and take it to where my stuff was. Luckily there weren't very many people to worry about snagging my things. I haven't exercised in a long hot while, so in the end I was pretty tired, especially considering I had to do this numerous times.

Anyhow, from Yawata we took a Tooei Shinjuku train to Shinjuku station. Yawata is the very end of the line, so our train was empty when we boarded and spilling over with people by the time we disembarked. Shinjuku, minatomachi indeed. The station was PACKED. Granted, we get there about 6:15, but still-- it was a buzzing sea of black-haired heads bobbing around. Quite confusing. I was lucky that my mom was wearing a somewhat uniquely colored shirt because otherwise, I would have lost her.

We spent a little while in Shinjuku Station first looking for a bathroom, and then trying to figure out how to use the pay phones. Since my mom didn't want to chuck 100 yen into the thing, use 3 minutes and get no change, she insisted instead on putting in 10 yen, talking until the thing hung up (one minute), and then repeating the process until she got her message to my aunt that we would call her when we arrived in Nakagami Station. And, at the end of this, she said "Gaaah, I spent 40 cents on that phone call! How expensive!!" Sigh.

The JR train we took from Shinjuku to Nakagami was a nightmare. We had to stand the whole time because it was packed tighter than a sardine can, but the Japanese are professional train riders and will literally mow you down if you're standing in their way at their stop. I did get knocked down at one point, which is utterly embarrassing. I was so happy when we were able to get off that train (and that we were standing on the side the doors opened, thank God).

Out of pure coincidence, my uncle happened to be riding the same train, so when we disembarked we heard "Oneesan?" and ran into Kawasakisan, Suzukoobachan's husband. He had a cell phone, so he spared me from having to operate a pay phone at my mom's pace. About five minutes later, Suzukoobachan arrived in her little car, and we went to a little Japanese restaurant to grab some dinner.

Mom and I both ordered nabeyaki udon with a side of maguro paste over rice. Kawasakisan got tonkatsu and I have no idea what Suzukoobachan got, hah. Oh man, they put fried mochi into the udon, which made it so much more delicious than I can describe. The noodles were made in-house, the shiitake mushroom was fresh, not reconstituted, and they tossed in some chrysanthemum leaves, which I had never eaten before (they taste like how the plant smells. Go figure).

I was tired during dinner, but nothing could compare to how tired I was when we got to Suzukoobachan's house. She made tea and put out odango and what looked like mochi and bean paste on a stick. She also brought out mizuyoukan, which is like a thick red bean pudding in a cup. I showed them pictures of my pets and some pictures from my father's Air Force retirement. After a couple hours of chatting, my mom and I finally were able to grab a shower and go to sleep.

Oh, Japanese bathrooms. I LOVE them. The toilet has its own little closet, and the water that refills the toilet is what you wash your hands with (so efficient! It's clean water that goes into the tank, why not use it to wash your hands?) so there is no sink. The sink is in the same area as the washing machine and has a medicine cabinet and mirror about it. The bathroom is just that-- the entire room is used for bathing. There is a tub with high walls for soaking, and an area near the door used for washing and showering. There are two hooks for the shower wand, the high hook for standing up and the low hook for squatting or sitting. The spigot swivels between the tub and the shower area so that you can either fill the tub or fill your wash bucket. The idea is that you fill the tub with hot water to soak, but before you get in you wash your body first in the showering area so that you do not get the soaking water dirty.

We slept without pillows because Suzukoobachan does not have any extras. Mom says we'll get some at the BX. I look forward to that.

The trip that nearly didn't happen. Twice.

So I was proud of myself-- I had my suitcase packed by two o'clock on the day before departure, which is an almost unheard of feat for me since I am usually cramming things into a duffel bag while I'm running to the car.

Well, we had everything planned so well-- I would stay up and burn DVDs and transfer files onto my computer while Dagmar would sleep. He would wake up at 3 and we'd be out the door by 3:30 so I could be at the airport by 4 (since I have been told time and time again that this is mandatory for international flights). That would give me plenty of time to organize my carryon stuff around my laptop, as the space it takes up dictates what I can fit around it and in what arrangement. All of my things were right next to my bag; they just weren't in it.

Well, I laid down around 2:15 to get a little rest before setting out since my laptop was gleaning information from my desktop. I woke up a little puzzled that I felt somewhat refreshed, as if I had napped longer than 45 minutes. Dagmar was still fast asleep.

I grabbed my phone, and it was 4. AWESOME. I had everything planned so well up to this point, and panic set in pretty hardcore. Stuff went flying into my backpack and purse, crammed in every which way, the laptop got shoved into its little caddy and somehow I managed to fit in 2 minutes to wash my face and hair before running out the door in an exhausted, frazzled mess.

I hoped to God that I would be able to check my luggage. I hoped to God I'd be allowed to check in at all. After all, this was an international flight and I'd have to go through all sorts of lines and metal detectors and pat-downs and produce declarations.

Well, as it turns out if you're from the US and leaving the US, they don't seem to care what you're taking with you if your connecting flight will also be leaving from the US. So that was a relief.

Except that about halfway to the airport I realized that I had left my laptop AC adaptor plugged into the wall. I ran through all these scenarios in my head where I'd either have to pay buttloads of cash to get a new one or just forgo having the computer with me at all.

"I'll go get it. It'll take me half an hour," said the level-headed and not completely panicked and sleep-deprived boyfriend. He lives about 15 minutes away, and seeing as it was only 4:50 and my flight boarded at 5:30, it was the most rational thought produced all morning. So poor Dagmar, after dropping me off, dutifully drove back to his house, grabbed my charger, and returned to the airport to give it and a farewell kiss to me.

He is just the best. I will miss him so much.

So anyway, after going through the screening point, I had to sort of hustle to my gate, where only I and one other person had not boarded. I'm just glad I wasn't the only one they were waiting on. It was 5:45 by this point.

Okay, on the plane, finally! I got sat next to two chatty parents with iPhones talking about the middle schools their children attended. I shuffled through my stuff several times, trying to arrange it in an under-the-seat-friendly fashion. This was met with disputable success.

On final approach, I went to grab my boarding pass for the next flight, when I noticed that my passport was nowhere to be found. I had to use it to check in, and I had it in-hand when I went through screening. Had I dropped it when I boarded the plane? HAD IT DROPPED THROUGH THE GAP BETWEEN THE PLANE AND THE (GANGWAY)? I went through all of my bags numerous times, as well as the kangaroo pouch and my pockets. Nothing. Panic again set in. If I couldn't find that passport, I wouldn't be able to leave the US.

I searched my stuff once my neighbors disembarked, and found my passport flopped under my seat. Relief metaphorically washed over me.

So now I'm waiting in DFW for another hour and a half to board my long long long flight to Narita. I hope that we get fed and, more importantly, that I am not asleep when they serve it.

As a sidenote, DFW's terminal is kind of interesting. I offloaded on the exact opposite side of the airport from where I would be leaving, which does not bode well for my return trip since I have a very narrow window in which to get through customs and then on to my flight back to Austin. Anyhow, the radio station they have hooked into the PA must be reading my brain, since they have played at least two songs from Madonna's Confessions on a Dance Floor and Gwen Stefani's Love Angel Music Baby, as well as other annoying dancey pop music that I enjoy.

I'm not excited that once I get into Narita, it will be at least another 3 hours of traveling before we will be at Suzuko obachan's house. Trains are sort of fun, though. I'll just keeping telling myself that.

I will pretend to be productive and brush up on some Japanese while I have downtime, although what I would really love to do right now is to nap.