Arrival to Japan, Part I
Okay, so this is going to be a VERY long post and will be broken up into a few different parts to prevent people from falling asleep half way through. I finally have some sort of working Internet after many days without service. Hopefully, this will be the longest post ever since it encompasses the last few days. I’ll try to summarize and break it down as best as I can.
PART I
DAY 1-January 28th, USA: 4:00 a.m. I woke up very sleep-deprived and jittery after getting probably1-2 hours of sleep the night before. We got to the SAC Intl. airport around 6:30 a.m. and were way ahead of schedule. They recommend being three hours early for an international flight, but the airport was just dead. It was insanely easy to get through. The bummer is that ever since 9/11, security measures have been beefed up everywhere, so both sets of parents couldn’t come with me on the escalator to the upper levels. So I had to say goodbye in the lobby and ride up to my terminal. Anyways, then the security people put all of my things (coat, computer, shoes, passport, etc.) in plastic tubs and made me pass through the metal detector. For some impossible reason, it didn’t go off. Good luck doesn’t happen to me very often, so I almost wanted to go back and ask if the machine was broken.
The flight finally left for Seattle around 9:15, and I was in seat 18C, way in the back on the aisle. Could have been worse. It was mostly just clouds, anyway. No one was in the middle seat, and the guy at the window slept for most of the trip. That kind of annoyed me. Hey, if you’re lucky enough to get the window seat, don’t taunt me by sleeping on it. When we started the descent into Seattle, though, I was able to see a little of the landscape. Washington-judging from the little I saw of it-is beautiful with the city framed by snow-capped mountains and the suburbs full of fir trees.
The plane touched down at 11:15 somewhere in the D Gate area, which is in the far corner of the airport. I found an electronic flight schedule on the wall and figured out that I needed to get all the way to Gate S1 in the South Satellite somehow. Let me tell you, that airport is absolutely huge! They have a Borders, for God’s sake. I was tempted. Stephen was staring at me through the window from the bestseller’s shelf, but I persevered and moved on. It was a very long walk with so much weight on my back, and I was sweating a lot by the end of it. It’s a good thing I hurried, though. I had to take a train underground to get to the S Gates. I saw the sign pointing towards a subway and my first thought was, “Huh, I’m taking a train to Japan? No wonder it takes ten hours.” But it worked out and I got my ticket stamped at the front desk. I had an hour to kill, so I figured I’d make a call home and let people know that I made it. The problem was that I only had so much change and I couldn’t remember Irma’s cell phone number off the top of my head, so I ended up only calling Mom. I had no sooner hung up when the counter announced all passenger boarding. I guess they board super early for international flights.
I was in seat 38C at the very tail of the plane. It was on the aisle of the middle region, so no window seat again. The plane was very fancy with a computer screen displaying the temperature, altitude, and distance remaining/covered on the seat in front of you. It also offered about thirty different movies, music playlists on headphones, and games like solitaire and mahjong. I wasted a lot of time on that stuff. Most of the other passengers seemed to be Japanese tourists returning home. Other people were flying on to South Korea. The woman next to me was from the Philippines and was headed back for a class reunion. She apparently hadn’t been back for forty years and was very nice to talk to every once in a while.
When we took off, we got up to about 300 km/hr. All the Japanese couples were very cute as we were headed down the runway. They all pulled out their digital cameras in unison and pointed them out the window to get a good view of other planes taking off next to us. “Aah! Sugoi!” One woman started swearing under her breath in Japanese when she missed a shot. We pulled up out of Seattle and hit cloud cover almost immediately. It was very overcast and gray there. I won’t bore you with trivial details about a ten hour flight, but I’ll just say that the meals were incredible. Here’s the rundown: Dinner-Beef strips with black bean sauce, white rice, a vegetable mix, a small salad, biscuit, fruit (grapes, honeydew, and cantaloupe) and a side of shrimp and lemon. I got what I paid for. Breakfast was eggs, sausage, biscuits, orange juice, a side salad, and fruit. I definitely needed it for later, but that’s another story. Tune in for the next installment of the thrilling five part series of STUFF NINA HAS TO SUMMARIZE AFTER DAYS AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER. I’ll be posting more tomorrow. Don’t worry, the next part’s not as boring and will include pictures…hopefully.
PART I
DAY 1-January 28th, USA: 4:00 a.m. I woke up very sleep-deprived and jittery after getting probably1-2 hours of sleep the night before. We got to the SAC Intl. airport around 6:30 a.m. and were way ahead of schedule. They recommend being three hours early for an international flight, but the airport was just dead. It was insanely easy to get through. The bummer is that ever since 9/11, security measures have been beefed up everywhere, so both sets of parents couldn’t come with me on the escalator to the upper levels. So I had to say goodbye in the lobby and ride up to my terminal. Anyways, then the security people put all of my things (coat, computer, shoes, passport, etc.) in plastic tubs and made me pass through the metal detector. For some impossible reason, it didn’t go off. Good luck doesn’t happen to me very often, so I almost wanted to go back and ask if the machine was broken.
The flight finally left for Seattle around 9:15, and I was in seat 18C, way in the back on the aisle. Could have been worse. It was mostly just clouds, anyway. No one was in the middle seat, and the guy at the window slept for most of the trip. That kind of annoyed me. Hey, if you’re lucky enough to get the window seat, don’t taunt me by sleeping on it. When we started the descent into Seattle, though, I was able to see a little of the landscape. Washington-judging from the little I saw of it-is beautiful with the city framed by snow-capped mountains and the suburbs full of fir trees.
The plane touched down at 11:15 somewhere in the D Gate area, which is in the far corner of the airport. I found an electronic flight schedule on the wall and figured out that I needed to get all the way to Gate S1 in the South Satellite somehow. Let me tell you, that airport is absolutely huge! They have a Borders, for God’s sake. I was tempted. Stephen was staring at me through the window from the bestseller’s shelf, but I persevered and moved on. It was a very long walk with so much weight on my back, and I was sweating a lot by the end of it. It’s a good thing I hurried, though. I had to take a train underground to get to the S Gates. I saw the sign pointing towards a subway and my first thought was, “Huh, I’m taking a train to Japan? No wonder it takes ten hours.” But it worked out and I got my ticket stamped at the front desk. I had an hour to kill, so I figured I’d make a call home and let people know that I made it. The problem was that I only had so much change and I couldn’t remember Irma’s cell phone number off the top of my head, so I ended up only calling Mom. I had no sooner hung up when the counter announced all passenger boarding. I guess they board super early for international flights.
I was in seat 38C at the very tail of the plane. It was on the aisle of the middle region, so no window seat again. The plane was very fancy with a computer screen displaying the temperature, altitude, and distance remaining/covered on the seat in front of you. It also offered about thirty different movies, music playlists on headphones, and games like solitaire and mahjong. I wasted a lot of time on that stuff. Most of the other passengers seemed to be Japanese tourists returning home. Other people were flying on to South Korea. The woman next to me was from the Philippines and was headed back for a class reunion. She apparently hadn’t been back for forty years and was very nice to talk to every once in a while.
When we took off, we got up to about 300 km/hr. All the Japanese couples were very cute as we were headed down the runway. They all pulled out their digital cameras in unison and pointed them out the window to get a good view of other planes taking off next to us. “Aah! Sugoi!” One woman started swearing under her breath in Japanese when she missed a shot. We pulled up out of Seattle and hit cloud cover almost immediately. It was very overcast and gray there. I won’t bore you with trivial details about a ten hour flight, but I’ll just say that the meals were incredible. Here’s the rundown: Dinner-Beef strips with black bean sauce, white rice, a vegetable mix, a small salad, biscuit, fruit (grapes, honeydew, and cantaloupe) and a side of shrimp and lemon. I got what I paid for. Breakfast was eggs, sausage, biscuits, orange juice, a side salad, and fruit. I definitely needed it for later, but that’s another story. Tune in for the next installment of the thrilling five part series of STUFF NINA HAS TO SUMMARIZE AFTER DAYS AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER. I’ll be posting more tomorrow. Don’t worry, the next part’s not as boring and will include pictures…hopefully.