Journey to Japan: Airplane Tickets
Hello again, sorry it's been so long, I'm still here. I Just have been busy with work and planning. Today I finally bought my tickets for my trip. It's getting closer and closer each day and I'm getting more and more excited!
When I first received my acceptance letter was actually when I started tracking ticket prices and comparing websites. I always see those travel sites advertised on TV and I figured I would check out a few of them. They all had such a variety of prices ranging from $700 to almost $2000. That also depends on how many stops you wanted to take. The less expensive flights were often the ones with 2 stops on the other hand direct flights were harder to come by, at least from the airport near where I live.I had alot to think about, would I rather save money or have less stops? Being that it would be my first time flying Internationally I wanted to have less stops. I was also looking for a few other factors such as type of plane and certain airlines.
That was when an idea came to me, my sister moved to Long Island in the beginning of December, maybe I could fly out from JFK airport in New York City instead of Buffalo Niagara International Airport here? I decided to ask my sister about how far she was living from JFK airport and she told me that it was maybe a 15 to 20 minute drive. So I decided to research flights from JFK (New York City) to NRT (Narita Airport, Tokyo). That's when I saw that there were a few direct flights that weren't terribly expensive. So I tracked those prices for a few weeks.
There was one catch though, in order to be picked up by people from KCP International (The school I will be attending) I had to arrive at Narita Airport before 3:30pm on April 7th. When I looked back at the direct flights I noticed that only one of them would actually get me there before that time. That cut down my choices to only one flight. Maybe there was a reason the universe pushed me in this direction.
Tonight, with my mom at my side making sure I was doing all of this correctly, I booked my flights to Japan and then back to the United States when my program ended.
So my plan is that I will take an Amtrak Train to New York City the day before my flight leaves. My sister said that she will come to the station to pick me up, we will go out for dinner and then I will crash on her couch for the night. Early the next morning I will gather my things and she will take me to JFK airport, my flight is set to leave around 9:30am and it will last for 14 hours, but I am scheduled to arrive at Narita Airport hours before the deadline. It also gives me a couple hours to spare in case there is a delay. I'm crossing my fingers that everything will work out perfectly (or near perfect) though.
This trip is just getting more real the closer I get to April, I am so excited to be doing this!
Now my next question, how does one survive a 14 hour flight?