We were planning on sleeping in this morning, but we all were jetlagged and were up by 5am so we decided to take the free shuttle bus to the airport. AA gave us some vouchers for 1,500 yen worth of breakfast for each of us, so after giving our luggage to the storage service (we couldn’t check them in until 11am), we went to look for a good place to have breakfast. Most all of the restaurants looked so good! Much better than the typical Chili’s you find in American airports! There were restaurants serving Italian, sushi, ramen, katsu, etc. We settled on a Japanese restaurant and Bay had the kid’s set, which was some onigiri and tempura served on a cool space shuttle plate. Koa had soba, Mariko had soba, tempura and sashimi, and I had ten-don (tempura donburi) with miso soup. I also had a glass of cold beer, which was so good. The vouchers said “not good for alcohol” but the lady said it was ok. The food was delicious, and we ate it up quickly.
After that, we walked around the shops and bought some frozen mochi treats. They looked really yummy, and we picked out several to eat later (you have to wait about 30 minutes before it thaws out). Our next thing to do was to hop in a cab and head over to a shopping mall in the city of Narita to find haircuts for the boys. They were going to a kindergarten for a few days starting on Monday, so we wanted them to look good. We had let their hair grow pretty long because we wanted them to go to a Japanese stylist.
The mall was really big, kind of like an American mall. There was even a Hard Rock Cafe there. First, we went to the Jusco dept store to buy some shoes for the kids for kindergarten, and browsed around the toy section. Koa is nuts for power rangers, and he found a bunch of cool stuff to buy. There was also a big game center for kids, and we spent a lot of time there, just looking around, trying to avoid plopping 100 yen coins into the machines. After Jusco, we went to the mall shops and found the haircut place, where we made a reservation for noon. While waiting, we sat in the “picnic court” and ate the mochi treats, which were awesome! We got mocha, chocolate, marron (chestnut), milk tea, and matcha flavors. The picnic court was so much better than the food courts in American malls. Besides the McDonald’s and Baskin Robbins, there was a Korean place with bibimbap, a takoyaki/okonomiyaki place, a ramen place, steak place, and a few others. They all looked so good, but we were pretty full still from breakfast.
Soon enough, it was noon and time for the kids’ haircuts. We picked out some kakkoi (cool) styles from the stylist books and the kids were transformed from American hippies into Japanese idols. We were done by 1pm, and we had to check in at 5:30pm, so we still had a few hours. I guess we killed another hour shopping, then went to the McDonald’s on the first floor to get a Pokemon calendar and something to drink. The McDonald’s was cool, with a little toy conveyor belt that cranked out the burgers. It was pretty neat.
Finally, we had run out of things to do at the mall, so we hopped on the bus and headed back to the airport. The bus went through a pretty cool part of Narita, which was kind of touristy. We caught a glimpse of Naritasan, which is a group of temples, before making it to the shuten (final destination) of Keisei Narita. Then we got on the train for a quick trip to the terminal, where we checked in and waited, and waited for the JAL flight to Osaka. I had a cold Kirin (always good) and the kids shared some strawberry milk. The flight was ok, and we took a cab from Itami to Mariko’s mom’s place. It was so nice to finally be at home! It had been five years since I had visited, but it felt just like yesterday. After a quick meal of maki-zushi and oden, it was time for bed! Another travel day, but this one was a whole lot more fun!
We are finally in Osaka! But it was a crazy trip! First of all, we were supposed to leave the house at just 3:55am, to get to the airport just after 4:15am, which is the time that the AA ticket counter opens. Either my stupid watch’s alarm didn’t go off, or I didn’t hear it, but instead of waking at the planned 3am, I woke up at 3:45am. I was instantly in panic mode! Forget the shower! Luckily Mariko had showered a few hours before. I hurridly brushed my teeth, fixed my hair, got dressed and then “ding-dong”, the doorbell rang and Mariko’s friend was here to take us to the airport. I felt so bad because we weren’t ready, and she was right on time. It didn’t take us long to throw the rest of our things in the suitcases (just toothbrushes and stuff) and then get the kids dressed and into the car. I guess we were out the door at about 4:10am, but then we needed to hit the ATM for some cash also! I was in a daze, since it was so early, but my adrenaline was pumping.
We arrived at the airport at about 4:35am, and there was already a longer line than I thought would be there, and then the stupid self-service ticketing machine was giving me problems. Mariko was in line, and she was almost at the front when I finally got the machine to give us the boarding passes. Perfect timing! Also, there is no more checked baggage security check that we have to go thru. I guess it is all taken care of behind the scenes. Next was the trip thru security, which went without a hitch. Whew!!! We had made it to the airport in time! In fact, we had a few minutes to relax before boarding the plane and got some water and coffee. The plane ride up to Chicago was good since Mariko had made a bunch of spam musubi for us to munch on. The kids did really good on the plane as well, with no meltdowns to speak of. But AA no longer has free decks of playing cards, which is so bogus!!!
We arrived at O’Hare and made our way to the connecting flight. On the way, I saw Jesse Jackson. He walked right in front of me. He was wearing a black hat and was about 7 feet tall it seemed. Anyways, we had plenty of time to wait at the airport, since the plane was scheduled to leave at 11:05am, but was delayed until 12noon. I figured that it wouldn’t affect our schedule since the pilot should be able to make up the time in the air, and our stopover in Tokyo was over two hours. But soon we found out that the plane was delayed even longer, now leaving at 2:40pm, which meant we would miss our connection in Narita. I spent several minutes on the phone with the AA agent, but there were no later flights out of Narita to Osaka (Itami), so we would have to spend the night, then catch the flight out of Narita the next evening. That kind of sucked because instead of arriving in Osaka on Saturday night, we would arrive Sunday night so that was one less day for the kids to be with Grandma.
The flight out of O’Hare took off at around 3:30pm. It turns out that our original plane had mechanical problems, then they had to wait for a free plane, which was arriving from London. Also, while we were taxiing on the runway, another plane broke down and we had to wait for that to get out of the way. You know what? O’Hare sucks. I never want to go thru that airport again. Unfortunately we had to go that route because we were using our miles to get three freebies.
But once we were in the air, things went well. The kids were excited because there was a video screen in front of each seat. I was excited because of the free beer. Except that it’s not free anymore. So I just had some tea instead. The kids slept most of the way there, which was a whopping 13 hours. I watched Ratatouille a couple times (what a great movie) and slept a bit. Lunch (which was served at about 6:30pm) was really bad: some meat-like pieces on Uncle Ben’s, plus a piece of salmon sushi. The salad was decent, tho. Oh, another complaint. They ran out of custom forms. How hard would it to be to keep a stack of 300 customs forms on the plane? Jeezus!
Well, we finally arrived at Narita at around 8:15pm and then had to wait around while the AA ticket agents arranged our flight, which we had already arranged via the ticket agent on the phone in Chicago, but had subsequently been changed by the AA people, who wanted us to fly out of Haneda instead of Narita. We told them to switch it back to our original flight, which meant we would spend most of the next day in Narita. As soon as the flight was taken care of, we went thru customs. We were lucky because when we came into the immigration area, one of the immigration officials took us straight to the priority line, bypassing about 40 other passengers. Maybe they just didn’t want our kids, who were getting rowdy, disrupting the area.
After clearing customs, we gathered our bags, picked up our box dinners and headed for the shuttle bus, which whisked us to the nearby hotel. Another wait to check in, then it was up to the room, which although a non-smoking room, reeked of cigarettes. The boxed dinners were pretty good. Even these simple convenience store meals in Japan blow away the gross economy class airplane food. Our dinners were slices of smoked salmon, deli meats, Japanese style sandwiches, and fried chicken drummettes. It really was quite delicious. We finally hit the sack at around midnight, thinking we would just sleep in the next morning and take a late taxi instead of waking up early to catch the 7am shuttle bus back to the airport. So ended our first day of travel to Japan.
So I was at Target today buying some new jeans. But the sizing of Levis are just weird. I tried on a pair of some boot-cut jeans, at 30W 30L, but they were too tight. Then I tried on some regular fit ones in the same size, and they were pretty good. What gives? And whatever happened to shrink-to-fits that were popular a long time ago. The ones that you’d have to wash to get the correct fit. I think it was they would shrink 1 inch at the waist and 2 inches length. Good ol button-up 501’s! You know, I don’t think I have ever owned a pair of jeans that weren’t Levis. But it is funny, one of my friends said that our European coworkers once commented that Americans wear Levi’s too much. I guess it’s true. Oh btw Target has great prices on Levi’s. $19.99 for the pair I got!
“Repeal Day is not widely celebrated in this country, yet it commemorates the anniversary of the day the United States repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and gave Americans the constitutional ability to consume alcohol.
Yesterday Bay and I met up with Jeremy at Old Settler’s Park in Round Rock to sail my RC sailboat for the first time. We were the only ones there with a sailboat, although there was a guy using his RC speedboats on the other side of the pond. It was a really good day for sailing as the wind was not too strong, but not too light that we had to worry about the boat getting stuck out there. I was a little nervous when I put her in the water for the first time, but as soon as the wind filled the sails, it was so cool! It definitely takes some skill and practice (both of which I lack) to sail her with any grace, but it was tons of fun. Bay also had a good time sailing the boat. I was a little worried about the boat getting stuck in some weeds, since if that happened, I would have to probably go for a little swim. But the Victoria’s keel only goes down about 9 inches, so there isn’t too much to get caught on. After several minutes on the water, I brought it in to check to see if there was any water inside the hull, but surprisingly, it was completely dry inside. I can’t wait until my friend Jeremy has his Vic all ready to sail as well. It will be tons of fun to have someone to race against, or at least “trade some paint”.
Now I just need to tweak some of the sail settings (the jib was being let out a bit too far) and finish up the paint job. On the horizon will be new mast components and sails. The thing about upgrading the Vic is that most of the stuff can be done piecemeal from parts available at a craft or hardware store. The mast components can be made from arrow shafts, but the sail would best be ordered. I am actually having lots of fun tweaking the boat with little upgrades. Almost as much fun as sailing!
