Wow! What a journey. We left California yesterday at 7:30 a.m. after Uncle Richard stopped by to drive us to the airport. After he got a glimpse of our pile of luggage he understood why we needed to take the big truck to the airport -- 9 suitcases! We took Alaska Airlines to Seattle on a small turboprop, and then transferred onto our ride to Tokyo Narita -- an Airbus A330, a very nice airplane. We all watched lots of movies but didn't get much sleep since we were in the coach section. I finally got to see August Rush, which was at our local Quincy theater just a few weeks ago but I was too busy to see it. After traveling over 5000 miles, we finally landed at Narita airport and had no problems at all getting through immigration and customs and getting our visas stamped for three years. We also declared all our household belongings that are being shipped from California.
The worst part of the whole trip was the interminable bus trip from Narita to downtown Tokyo. Those last 10 miles (oops, I need to start thinking in kilometers) were in very heavy traffic, and the whole thing took 2 hours. The bus took us to the ANA Intercontinental Hotel, and from there we piled our luggage and ourselves into two taxis and finally found the temporary apartment. The tour of the apartment by the desk manager was a blur, and we watched a bit of Anthony Bourdain's show in Tahiti before we tumbled into bed at 9 p.m. That was 6 a.m. California time, a full 24 hours since we got up to leave yesterday.
Oh what a different world this is, even seen at night from our fourteenth floor apartment -- lights everywhere! When my brain is a little less fried I'll get photos to post.
2 comments:
How exciting it all sounds. Very glad you made it okay and will be watching for updates.
Jeez, what a culture shock you guys! I forgot about this blog, but now I'll send the link out.
Glad to hear from you! Give everyone a hug from me!
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