Day One

Nearing hour 7 on my plane ride to Narita/Tokyo International Airport has given me some serious time to reflect on the morning’s events. Last time I checked I was supposed to be sitting on a plane to Hong Kong right now and much closer to my final destination. The world decided to plan different events for my short jaunt over to Southeast Asia today.

• 3:30 am – early wake-up call, which ultimately doesn’t’ really matter because who sleeps the night before a big trip anyway
• 4:15 am – learned that there are still drawbridges in use today and one is in fact going up in front of me between myself and the airport. Great.
• 5:45 am – board an early hopper flight from Reagan to JFK, or so I thought
• 7:10 am – clearly still circling the skies past our landing time, I get the feeling we aren’t landing at JFK anymore…
• 7:30 am – captain comes on, enjoy La Guardia airplane because that’s where we are diverting to due to weather
• 8:00 am – deplane in a virtually worthless airport, slowly accepting the fact I may not leave for Asia today
• 9:00 am – replane in La Guardia once they realize how many international travelers were on our flight that now have no hope of getting out of LGA successfully
• 10:15 am – I think just to spite me, the universe allows our plane to touch down at JFK while my Hong Kong flight is taking off almost simultaneously. Goodbye plane number one
• 10:30 am – stand in the infamous customer service line where American proves worthless yet again and Virginia and I end up on Delta for the rest of our journey. Hunt for luggage commences
• 12:30 pm – by this point we have exited security and are standing by the baggage claim (where American lovingly told us to go) and it is becoming clear that it is either us or the bags going to Singapore today
• 12:31 pm – make a last ditch effort to find the bags, all of the airlines shrug and say we will send you your bags when we find them… don’t worry, I don’t need clothes in Asia JFK
• 1:30 – barely make the final boarding call of our 13 hour flight to Tokyo, exhausted, unfed, and  bag-less. It’s going to be a long haul…but I am secretly excited to see Japan at least from the plane - does that count as a visit?

So that brings me to the present. I have already watched episodes of Better with You, Parks and Recreation, The Dilemma, Little Fockers, and the newly started – Gulliver’s Travels. Delta figured I only needed one meal over a 13 hour period which I had roughly 5 hours ago. I know I joked about this trip being a diet (seeing as how I don’t like Asian food) but I did not think that would begin before I left the states. I am pleased to see however that we are still flying over land, my guess is northern Alaska given our route went the opposite way I expected – north over Canada and Alaska and then into Russian airspace, as the pilot put it. Sounds quite sinister if you ask me. As most of you know I have an irrational fear of drowning so this is good news. Bring it on Russia. I estimate that I have roughly another 10-11 hours left of traveling before I get to Singapore at roughly 1:15 am Thursday. My trip started Tuesday morning at 6:00 am. The world works in mysterious ways. -Becca