Day 1: Traveling

Day started out with us waking up at 2:30 in the morning in order to make it to the airport by 4am. We made it there in plenty of time, courtesy of David volunteering to drive us there. To our surprise everything went completely as expected and check in was normal. We were looking forward to a lengthy sit in customs but that did not come until later.

Chrissy gave her best Grumpy Cat face

I'm ready to go

What it looks like 2 hours before a 6am flight

Flight 1: Everything went great and we actually made it to Dallas a few minutes early.

Layover 1: Having made it early, we decided to get some food. We were still feeling good and decided to go to Fudruckers to have a burger. Sadly, it was closed. Instead we went to Einstein Bros. Bagels and got some delicious noms. We also spotted an awesome Star Trek PEZ set!

Flight 2: Again everything went well and we made it to LAX with some extra time to spare. The only problem being that Chrissy started feeling sick when the flight began and did not get better after that.

Chrissy's not looking too good

She's trying to power through

Our 777 chariot awaits

Layover 2: We were both wiped out at this point, only about 5 hours in flight time but we both felt generally unwell. Kyle was able to drink some caffeine and power up. Chrissy was not having it and reluctantly got on the final flight.

Flight 3: There was some difficulty at the start. After everyone was boarded they went through and found that several people were not on the flight. Before taking off they had to off load the luggage for these individuals. We had to sit on the plane for over an hour before the luggage was taken off. Then came the 12 HOUR flight. Our flight path originally showed us making the trek to Hawaii and then over. Instead we followed land around the Pacific. So we went up by Canada and Alaska and then back down.

During the flight everyone was extremely courteous. All of the shutters were kept closed so that people could sleep and everyone was very quiet throughout the course of the flight. We each received a pillow and a blanket along with head phones. There was one main TV screen along with adjustable small screen on the back of each seat. The TV's offered the ability to watch movies or TV, keep up with the flight plan, or listen to music. Chrissy was still not feeling well and sleep almost the entirety of the flight. Kyle was able to get some reading done and keep an eye on the flight path.

Chrissy became an expert at sleeping in flight

Two meals were offered during the course of the flight. 1) Chicken or Beef. Kyle got Chicken which was just chicken and rice with a small serving of vegetables, a water, and a sushi! Chrissy slept. 2) Chicken or cheese pizza. This was the same chicken offering from earlier with a side of fruit instead of sushi. Chrissy, feeling better, ate the chicken. Chrissy made the wrong choice. Kyle had the "cheese pizza", it was mainly just squishy bread.

Nice touch American Airlines

Tokyo

We FINALLY landed in Tokyo at 4:50 pm Tokyo time and made the long walk from the flight to customs. We had received customs forms at the beginning of the flight and an instructional video was provided at the end of the flight for customs. Being first timers, we waited until we were finally off the flight and at the customs area to fill these out. Kyle was a champion and filled the forms out while Chrissy boo boo'd in the corner. We stood in line and made it through the check in process very quickly.

You just walk up and hand them your form and your passport. They stamp your passport and attach part of your form to the same page they stamped. Once we were released from there we had to collect our luggage. Due to Chrissy's boo booing we did not make it in time to collect it on the belt but instead had to find the counter and pick it up. This went very easily and we were able to just walk back and take our bags. We then finally passed through an area where they can inspect the luggage. We just walked up and handed them our passports. The gentleman asked what we were going to be doing in Japan and how long we would be staying. We said we were tourists and we would be here for 3 weeks and he said "okay, thank you", he gave us back our documents, and we left.

Next we had to exchange money. Before we left we looked up the exchange rate and found that the better rates were available with travelers checks. This is correct but we were not aware that they had to be signed already. To make a long story short, it took us going to two different exchange booths and some whispered conversation to find out that they cannot exchange these checks if they are not signed. They also can't exchange them if they have ever seen them unsigned so we had to sign them then take them to another bank. We finally got all of the checks signed and exchanged, and we got a paper crane, woo!

After this came the search for a place to rent a SIM card for the phone. After much ado and more of Chrissy's boo booing we decided to put this off until later.

Finally we had to get on the train for the apartment. Kyle was able to purchase the tickets while Chrissy found a line free restroom. Yes, there were crazy toilets in there. No, Chrissy did not use them because she was too freaked out. On the way out we came across three phone rental setups in a row. We found out that they are only able to rent regular SIMs, not MicroSIMs so we could not rent one anyway. Score one for Chrissy's boo booing as we then did not take an extra few bus rides at the airport to figure this out.

We got down to the train platform with several minutes to spare so we hung out and observed all of the Japanese language and writing. After a while the train came and we were able to get seats and hang on to our gigantic bags. This was sort of frightening because we got on the train with only the instructions to get off at a certain stop to change to another train. THANK YOU JAPAN! All of the stops are written on the maps in English as well. The board that scrolls the next stop also scrolls English. The train ride took about an hour before we had to change over. We literally walked off one train, went across the platform, and jumped on another. There were only a few stops before our station which did not take long.

One of the cooler looking trains

Once we were off the train we faced a dilemma as there are several exits and it was not at all clear which one we should be leaving from. We finally found what we thought to be the correct exit and went to leave. Kyle accidentally went through the wrong turn style and got stuck. His luggage was on one side and he was on the other. The surly man at the window let him through and pointed Chrissy to the right one and we were off.