So I guess I should start out by saying that everyone made it to Japan safely. It was just a REALLY long day…
The flight was pretty neat. We were on this ginormous 777 with more headroom than you can imagine. Each seat had this little LCD where you could choose from a variety of movies (Aeon Flux, Walk the Line, Elizabethtown, Pride & Prejudice) or watch a real time map of the world and see the exact location, speed, altitude, etc. We got two lunches on the plane over the 10 hour journey, both were surprisingly good for airplane food. After each meal we each got a warm towelette to clean… very fancy stuff.
From Seattle, we flew up to Alaska, over to Russia (Bering Sea) and then down to Japan.
And then we got to customs…
Everyone had to fill out this little form to get accepted into the country. One of the questions on the form was “Where will you be staying?” but everyone forgot to print out the address Avid sent us a couple weeks back. So we didn’t know and we all left the question blank. After wondering through the airport, we finally got to the customs desk. And the conversation went something like this…
Customs Official: Where will you be staying?
Me: Um…
Customs Official: You don’t know?
Me: I forgot the address… I am meeting a friend here.
Customs Official: What is your friends cell phone number?
Me: Um…
Customs Official: So you don’t know the address or the phone number. Can I see your written ticket?
Me: Written Ticket?
Customs Official: Your ticket to go back to your own continent?
Me: Um… (Matthew happened to have all the return stuff and he was a few booths down)
Customs Officer (giving me a sour look): Ok. I will let you through this time… but next time KNOW WHERE YOU ARE STAYING!!!
After that I met up with Matthew and Brett who all had similar experiences. We finally made to into the country! I had to celebrate by finding the nearest vending machine and purchasing the most exotic sounding beverage. I selected “Pocari Sweat” Yum! (tasted like Gatorade)
Then we met up with Avid and Kalun (after a little confusion) and we hopped on a train to Tokyo (We flew into Narita which is about an hour outside Tokyo). For the next while we were in many trains and subways working our way to the apt. The trains were filled with fun advertisements. Such as this one of McDonalds… where they put an EGG ON EVERYTHING!
Finally we made it. It’s a pretty small but neat little place. A living room, kitchen, toilet room, and shower room. A little bigger than a dorm room. But we all fit so thats good
After dropping our stuff off, we went out to dinner (around 9pm Japan time = 4am Pacific Time). We went to a Korean BBQ place where you order plates of raw meat slices and BBQ then on a small grill at the center of the table. It was really good and I am happy to report that we were all pretty decent with chop-sticks only dining. But it is not the best idea to give an open flame and raw meat to a bunch of guys who have been up for about 24 hours…
Then we went to bed around 11pm (6am your time) to end a really long day.
I am posting this in the morning when we all woke up around 7am. But I see its around 3pm your time so have a good afternoon and hopefully will post again tonight!
Check out these and more pictures at: Flickr
- Mike
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