The Flight to Japan

I'm posting this information, even though I have been here for a month. I know it is kind of late but for those of you who said they want to visit, I thought it would be good information to share. Also, for those of you who dread the 13-14 hour flight, this would be good info. for you.

I was so not looking forward to the flight, in fact, I did dread it but to my surprise, it was not bad at all. I flew continental, the carrier I mostly fly, outside of southwest. You can bank some serious miles too btw. I left Cleveland and connected in NJ. The plane was huge and very comfortable. I fortunately changed my seat and chose to sit in an exit aisle. That was great because the one I chose had no seats in front of me and had a pretty nice space to stretch my legs, stand up and put my stuff down. The strange thing, because of the time change, we never saw darkness. I did sit in the row with a guy from Baltimore who had been living in Japan for about 7 years. He was really informative and helpful. He even made sure that I got through customs and baggage without a hitch. During the flight, we had personal video monitors so I watched Something New (for the 3rd time, I love that movie), listened to music and ate. They constantly fed us and the food was good. I have always liked airplane food. :-) I did a lot of writing about the experience of moving to Japan and wrote a lot of thank you notes. (I still have to email those off). Unfortunately, I didn't get a lot of sleep. I have always had a problem with that but I managed to close my eyes here and there.

The one thing that everyone warned me about when I landed in Japan was not to fall asleep or I would be sorry. I had to get my body clock on Japan time. I stayed awake, well kinda, until about 11:00 p.m. I was taken dinner with my new boss, his boss, Chris, my boss's assistant and new faculty. I literally fell asleep at the dinner table between trying to talk to them and eating. Of course they all laughed at me.

When you come to visit, you will go to Tokyo first. I believe but not sure if you have to go to another airport to get to Okinawa or not. That is what I did. I then took another carrier. I tell you, that airport was amazing. The women that worked there were all in the same uniforms and they were beautiful, like china dolls, well I guess I should say Japan dolls. :-) The one thing that struck me was that everything there was so efficient, they were so friendly and the customer service was top notch, something we Americans should learn from.

I must leave you with this in closing. During my plane ride ironically I had my O magazine. It lead me to the live your best life page and Dorothy Allison wrote, women lose their lives not knowing they can do something different.... This journey is allowing me to claim myself and remake myself. If this venture is not doing just that, I don't know what is. I am a stronger woman for being courageous enough to take this step solo. I took the leap from others inspiring me (thanks San), networking (thanks Traci and Sue), the job loss (thanks INROADS) and last but not least, my faith (thank you Lord).