japan

lets start from the beginning:

yesterday : i finished my cleaning and packing madness, and a friend came by to take my couch, other (generous) friends came and took all my boxes 'o-crap that they are storing in their garage for me while i'm away. so all that was left was what i was taking. the downside was that i had no bed to sleep in last night (my couch folded out into my bed) so i spent the night on the (the actual living room) couch.

today (24th) : i woke up and ate a HUGE bowl of rice chex with LOTS of milk. it is going to be a long 5 months without homogenized american 2% bovine goodness. sigh. then i started to try to cram my pillow in my suitcase. hmmm. failure. plan b, try to zip carryon bag closed. (note: carryon bag was purchased for under $10 in urumqi street market in 2007. it made the following trip sequence: urumqi-beijing-tokyo-mineapolis-ohare-kelsey's house-florida-return from florida-beijing-hefei-guangzhou-hong kong-ohare-kelsey's house-florida-return from florida-hawaii move #1-hawaii move #2-hawaii move #3.) so i was trying to squeeze one more trip out of it, and it just wouldn't squeeze. instead it ripped.

so i called heather & petey g (ride to airport) and suggested we leave a tad bit early and stop by the outlet mall and find me a new carryon. i also requested petey g's assistance in zipping my bag, which he accomplished with great skill and agility. so then we visited the outlet mall, where i spent $35 (really breaking the bank since i could have got a suitcase 6 times that size for half the price in the mother country...) on a new carryon. it is actually quite slick and i like it alot. at the same time it had better last me YEARS of international travel, though, just saying. but all my stuff fit and it actually zipped up pretty easily.

luggage crisis solved, we were airport bound. i knew we had reached the airport when the throngs of japanese tourists became visible. it didn't help that i flew japan airlines. i could count the number of non-asians on that flight with my one hand. needless to say, some flight updates were given without translations to any other language. BUT somehow i managed to be sitting next to a chinese family. finally someone i could eavesdrop on... because let me tell you, i cannot even tell where japanese words/sentences start and stop. it's yamayamayama to me :).

(somewhere in here we crossed the international dateline into the 25th of august) : before today, i had never flown japan airlines. i really doubt if i'll ever fly another airline. jal rocks. first, they have the sweetest flight crew ever. no overweight middle-aged fake-blonde woman barking at you to get your toddler OUT OF BUSINESS CLASS NOW OR ELSE. jal attendants walked around periodically handing out hot towels, random beverages, etc. and, although the japanese are not known for their physical largeness, they have the most space for economy passengers i've experienced recently (perhaps you remember my rant from our to-china-for-aurora trip?) but you want to know the kicker? the aspect that wins my loyalty probably forever?

they. served. us. ice cream.

and my little heart melted.

jal has this amazing feature: they have a little camera in the cockpit area (maybe it's on top of the plane?) and one underneath the plane. so they "televise" the take off and landing which is really, really cool. then, every passenger (even those of us in economy!) gets their own tv screen on the seat back in front of them, with their own handy dandy remote, and they can watch the "action" from these cameras between showings of their favorite movies :).

i managed to watch 2 movies, take a nap, eat, read 'confessions of a counterfeit farm girl' which you've gotta read if you are from the midwest and/or pity those of us who live(d) there. it is an absolutely hilarious work of genius, i couldn't stop smiling and snickering (and yes i was in public!) it was all so true!

ok, and here's one last nice thing. the flight was just under 8 hours. EIGHT. this is a plus of living on the tiny tropical island in the middle of the pacific ocean. travel to asia just got a lot faster. no more 15 hours of hell between hong kong and ohare! i got off the 7 hour 45 minute flight and i wasn't a complete zombie. i'm blaming my feeling of bliss on the ice cream for sure.

so i got off the plane, got through customs and stuff and the helpful girl at the info desk managed to direct me (and my complete lack of direction self) to the appropriate bus (33) to get to my hotel.

when i dreamed of my ventures into japan i thought "oooohhhh a hotel in an urban area where i can poke around and buy something very "japanese" that i will treasure and use to wow my friends for years to come. so when we started driving through this bamboo forest i was like "what?"

sure enough, the nikko narita is in the middle of a forest. not even a mcdonalds or sushi joint around. so, instead of throwing down thousands of japanese yen (i exchanged for some japanese and chinese money at the honolulu airport) on one of their nice asian restaurants (which is what i will be eating for the next 5 months) i went to the convienience store and for a mere 600 yen (no idea how many american dollars that is, but i'm betting $7-10) i acquired:

-a carton of grapefruit juice
-cheap japanese version of pringles
-one individually packaged banana
-2 string cheeses
-a blueberry yogurt with mystery chewy pieces in it. it was the only one of the "yogurt-looking-ish" containers with any english on it. so of course i bought it.

i suppose soon i'll be heading off to bed. i have no idea what time it is here (it is dark, though), but i'm going to call down for a wake up call in the morning so that i am not late for my flight to the motherland. it is almost midnight in hawaii which means kelsey's body is about ready to crash. (another plus about living in hawaii is that it's actually only 4 hours ahead of japan, 6 for china i think, and technically one day :)... but it makes the jet lag transition a ton easier going this way!)

stay tuned & aloha.