Landing in Japan

Well, getting through customs and immigration and all that was slightly more nerve-wracking than getting through security in the Seattle airport, but mainly because three international flights came in at once, and students were arriving for many schools about this time of year, so there were lots of us who didn't know what we were doing. On the plane we filled out some papers declaring what we were bringing if it matched anything on their "don't bring" list and we had to declare if we were bringing in anything where limited quantities were allowed. I had none of these things, so no worries, but apparently they randomly decide to search so many people anyway and while I had nothing to hide, I really didn't want them spreading my toiletries and underwear across their table or any such thing. It was worth it to get here, but thankfully for me there was no searching and no patting down and no display of my bag of undies for all to see.

They fingerprint everyone, take a picture of your face (in which I'm sure I blinked...or had the deer in the headlights look --- at LEAST --- the lady cringed after snapping my picture, and I think this can't be good...heheh).

No pictures were allowed in the airport for some reason, and while some of my other friends could have taken some sneakily, anyway, I fall into the category of being inadvertently less than subtle about such things, so I didn't even try.

As I was told, there was a person waiting for me after I made it through all the lines of "we want to make sure you're not an angry foreigner coming to do angry things in our country." I was shown to the shuttle gate, where a new and crazed experience awaited me.

I had thought I would be scared and nervous on the planes...NOT a bit. I should have saved those feelings for the shuttle ride, but instead I had to laugh at the craziness of it. It was dark by this time, the shuttles are sort of little van things, there were about 6 other people and their international luggage in there, so we were kind of sardined, and we ZOOMED down tiny streets, alleys, and places that seemed like tiny driveways (actually some of these were MAIN roads, I found out later!) of much circling, angling, and very little room for such speeds. I was certain that we were going to rid the world of several bicyclists and pedestrians. In the end, I was the last one dropped off, and I KNOW by this time I had the look of several deer in the headlights combined, though mostly from having been awake about 23 hours at this point, and trying not to laugh at the craziness of the shuttle ride to keep from being alarmed by it instead.

It felt amazingly good to finally pull up at the apartments...

Sunday morning, to catch the 5:13 am airport shuttle, I awoke at 4:00 am. Early start to a very long day, and crossing so many time zones I would have to think about how many hours I actually ended up from waking up at the hotel till arriving in my apartment in Japan. Still kind of tired from all this, so thinking isn't necessarily on my list yet.

I met a nice lady from New York while waiting for the shuttle. This was the start of meeting interesting people all along the way. She teaches at a Catholic school and her college-age son has been on singing tours various places in the world. I don't know that she has much to remember me by other than that person who enjoyed listening to her, but so it is nice to do for people sometimes.

Check-in and passing through the security gate went quickly and without event. I remark on that only because it seems remarkable not to have any remarks on it...so many people have major stories even before getting to their plane, but all went simply and smoothly. It seemed almost dream-like but that was most likely because I was running on only a few hours of sleep.

I was unbelievably calm, considering that my last plane ride, probably 15 years ago or so, had been quite scary to me, in spite of my love of flying prior to that. I really thought I would never get on a plane again and had been quite determined about that stance. However, some things motivate one beyond one's fears, I have learned, and I felt amazingly peaceful and happy about doing this. No calming or breathing exercises or any of that stuff I had thought I would have to do to get myself to step on that plane...it just felt right. I didn't have a bit of nervousness at any point of the flying aspect at all once I arrived at the airport and throughout the duration of all the flights. I'm kind of in shock about that, actually. That has been a huge fear for a long time, and for it to just disappear seems unusual, but I'm glad of it.

Sitting by the window on the first flight, I got to see the amazingly beautiful descent to the Hawaiian airport. I love how you can see land formations under the water in many places.

The Hawaiian airport was much smaller than I expected. Nice to be able to exchange money there, walk around, buy some postcards to send to family, and wander over to the terminal.

The culture shock set in just a wee bit as I walked into the waiting area for the flight to Osaka and realized that of the couple hundred people there, that only about 3 or 4 of us were not Asian. I think my sense of adventure kicked in even more at this point. All the announcing for this flight in the airport was given in Japanese, even here at the Hawaiian airport. I could tell I wasn't in Kansas anymore...oh, wait! I haven't been to Kansas since I was 9 years old, so...

The only bummer, and only a slight one at that, was that I didn't have a window seat on this flight for picture-taking happiness. I loved all the guava juice I was served, we had two meals, both of which exceeded my expectations for airline food, and I discovered that postcards are difficult to write on when turbulence happens, which did each time I would take out one more of the postcards to write! I'm surprised they didn't discover the source of it all and confiscate my postcards! :)