Leaving for Tokyo: The Adventure Begins
Thursday night we stayed over at Stacey's apartment in New York so she could drive us to the airport in the morning. I ended up waking early because I was too excited to sleep and also, she has a very heavy cat that kept jumping on me. As we were putting our suitcases in the car, Stacey asked me if I needed my carry on bag and I said "no not unless I need money" so as she had already packed it in the car she dragged it out and threw it on the ground. I just stared at her stunned "You just threw my computer on the ground" I wailed. She looked shocked a moment, then apologized, so our trip was off to a good start.
Arriving at the airport we got a little misty saying goodbye to Stacey. Then in the check in line some Japanese men were checking out Kristin's butt. I thought that was funny, she was just kind of quiet. Once on the plane we were in for a LONG hellish ride, at first its ok, you have the excitement of a trip, getting snacks on the plane (of which there were many!) Wondering what movie you are going to watch, thinking :this plane sure has plenty of leg room its not bad! then somewhere it turns into sheer hell. Somewhere along the way you realize you've watched 4 movies and none of them were good, then you realize that the people sitting near you are alternately very talkative or just plain weird. Next you realize that your bum hurts and it will continue to hurt with nothing you can do about it. For us, additionally there was the man who walked up and down the aisle every 15 minutes or so and just blatantly stared at us. In a slapstick comedy moment to break up the tension I bought some duty free perfume which as I was trying to figure out the space age European design of when I managed to squirt a large stream of perfume into Kristins eye. She screamed "I'm blind" and I was partly horrified by what I had done and partly really amused, so we ended up concluding she would live to have a really smelly eye. Oh, and I forgot to mention the perfume had a chocolate base so it was ok and also we could eat it if we were stranded on an island. We had ordered ahead and gotten vegetarian meals though for some reason the stewardess thought we would enjoy it more if she mixed it up with a roast beef sandwich or two. I would have been more pleased with her if she had offered me one of the mini cheese pizzas everyone else got. We did meet two cool ladies in the seats in front of us, one of them asked me to email her through clownchef. She continually alluded to being much older than us, and though I didnt say anything, I had the feeling we were fairly close in age.
Finally we arrived in Tokyo! After the longest plane taxi Ive ever sat through. I thought they were just planning to drive the airplane over to Takas house for us. I had the additional freak out over whether he would even remember to pick us up, as we hadnt spoken for 2 days. Through immigration "the line chief" as I called him, assigned me a line that went super fast and Kristin got stuck in a really slow line so I chatted with our two new lady friends while I waited and made a half hearted plan to meet up. The airport was very hot and I regretted I didn't study up on how to say "More air conditioning in the airport, please" in Japanese. Finally we picked up our luggage and we popped out of the gate into a mess that seemed like we were rock stars getting off a tour jet. People everywhere with signs with names of people on them, people calling out, people milling about, security with dogs, it was disconcerting, not to mention I had that feeling you have when you haven't seen someone in a long time that either you or they will forget what each other looks like. Taka spotted us and rescued me from the embarrassment of looking past him. On the way out Kristin had to smoke, and we laughed that they had a plastic enclosure specifically for people smoking. We dubbed it "smokers prison" and took a funny picture of her stuck in it. My first thought was that I had to make a photo album of Kristin in smokers prisons across Japan, possibly this would lead to a big time printing deal for a best selling coffee table book.
We climbed into Taka's fancy SUV type vehicle with onboard talking Japanese lady computer person and we were finally really in Japan.
On the ride to his house we picked up a lot of traffic. At one tollbooth there was a life size fake construction worker that scared me a heck of a lot more than some haunted houses Ive been through (Draculas Castle *cough cough*)
Arriving at the airport we got a little misty saying goodbye to Stacey. Then in the check in line some Japanese men were checking out Kristin's butt. I thought that was funny, she was just kind of quiet. Once on the plane we were in for a LONG hellish ride, at first its ok, you have the excitement of a trip, getting snacks on the plane (of which there were many!) Wondering what movie you are going to watch, thinking :this plane sure has plenty of leg room its not bad! then somewhere it turns into sheer hell. Somewhere along the way you realize you've watched 4 movies and none of them were good, then you realize that the people sitting near you are alternately very talkative or just plain weird. Next you realize that your bum hurts and it will continue to hurt with nothing you can do about it. For us, additionally there was the man who walked up and down the aisle every 15 minutes or so and just blatantly stared at us. In a slapstick comedy moment to break up the tension I bought some duty free perfume which as I was trying to figure out the space age European design of when I managed to squirt a large stream of perfume into Kristins eye. She screamed "I'm blind" and I was partly horrified by what I had done and partly really amused, so we ended up concluding she would live to have a really smelly eye. Oh, and I forgot to mention the perfume had a chocolate base so it was ok and also we could eat it if we were stranded on an island. We had ordered ahead and gotten vegetarian meals though for some reason the stewardess thought we would enjoy it more if she mixed it up with a roast beef sandwich or two. I would have been more pleased with her if she had offered me one of the mini cheese pizzas everyone else got. We did meet two cool ladies in the seats in front of us, one of them asked me to email her through clownchef. She continually alluded to being much older than us, and though I didnt say anything, I had the feeling we were fairly close in age.
Finally we arrived in Tokyo! After the longest plane taxi Ive ever sat through. I thought they were just planning to drive the airplane over to Takas house for us. I had the additional freak out over whether he would even remember to pick us up, as we hadnt spoken for 2 days. Through immigration "the line chief" as I called him, assigned me a line that went super fast and Kristin got stuck in a really slow line so I chatted with our two new lady friends while I waited and made a half hearted plan to meet up. The airport was very hot and I regretted I didn't study up on how to say "More air conditioning in the airport, please" in Japanese. Finally we picked up our luggage and we popped out of the gate into a mess that seemed like we were rock stars getting off a tour jet. People everywhere with signs with names of people on them, people calling out, people milling about, security with dogs, it was disconcerting, not to mention I had that feeling you have when you haven't seen someone in a long time that either you or they will forget what each other looks like. Taka spotted us and rescued me from the embarrassment of looking past him. On the way out Kristin had to smoke, and we laughed that they had a plastic enclosure specifically for people smoking. We dubbed it "smokers prison" and took a funny picture of her stuck in it. My first thought was that I had to make a photo album of Kristin in smokers prisons across Japan, possibly this would lead to a big time printing deal for a best selling coffee table book.
We climbed into Taka's fancy SUV type vehicle with onboard talking Japanese lady computer person and we were finally really in Japan.
On the ride to his house we picked up a lot of traffic. At one tollbooth there was a life size fake construction worker that scared me a heck of a lot more than some haunted houses Ive been through (Draculas Castle *cough cough*)
posted by pointybunny at 8:48 AM
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