The Plane Ride...

The long, long plane ride.

Wow.

I have never traveled for so many hours straight as I did on my trip to Japan. 

My morning "started" at around 4:00am. I use quotation marks because my morning actually started long before that. In fact, I never went to bed the night before my trip, because I'd hoped that the exhaustion would help me to sleep on the plane. 

I've only been on a plane about 3 times in my life, and I only remember not liking it very much. 

Anyway, after getting to the airport at around 4:30, and saying good-bye to my family and fiancé at 5:30, it was time to say さようなら (sayounara) to my regular schedule and comforts for the next 3 months. 

My plane ride took me from Michigan to Chicago (about an hour flight), where I waited at my next gate for an hour. This was followed by the trip from Chicago to LAX (about 4 and a half more hours), with a 2+ hour wait at my next gate after that. Then, finally, I had the long long ride from LA to Narita -- an almost 12 hour flight.......where I was in the middle of 5 seats, surrounded by people on their way to China, who only spoke Chinese. Talk about a long and lonely trip. Not to mention the fact that my headset for my in-flight entertainment was not in the best of shape. So I got to enjoy The Wolf of Wall Street from a mostly muted and occasionally crackly perspective. Ha. But really, it wasn't so bad. The worst of my flight, by far, was the lack of room to stretch my legs, and how uncomfortable the seats felt after 4 or 5 hours. I tried to sleep several different times, but was unable to keep asleep for more than 20-30 minutes at a time.

Cool clouds.

*Something something airplane food joke*

When I arrived in Japan it was 4:30pm the next day. I was exhausted but knew I needed to try to stay up until at least 10:00pm in order to sleep on time and get used to my new schedule. If you weren't aware, it is a 13-hour time difference from Michigan to Japan.

Thankfully, my host family was nothing but accommodating this whole time. From picking me up from the airport, to helping me arrange my futon, and feeding me delicious food.

I am a very lucky girl.

And I nothing but good expectations for my stay here.

See you later, USA. I'll be back soon, so don't you forget about me