Wed, Sept 5th

Tuesday, September 4th Narita Airport, Tokyo, Japan, 4:15pm

We just arrived at Narita Airport after a 13 + hour flight from Chicago. The flight was uneventful even if it was long. There were a few areas of turbulence but I quickly learned to sleep right through themJ We flew north out of Chicago up over Alaska before heading west to Japan. Sitting in Business Class for me was a new experience. After “supper” (it’s only 2 pm Chicago time) they darken the plane and most people went to sleep for a few hours. Thankfully I was tired or I don’t think that I could have done itJ The seats are more comfortable than in coach but still leaves you with sore muscles at the end of the flight!

It was interesting to see a glimpse of Japan from the air. I noticed that the cars were all going the “wrong” way on the roads! The terrain looks like it has tree covered ridges and valleys and I saw a golf course. Very peaceful looking at not as busy as I have heard downtown Tokyo can be.

Upon landing it was interesting to note that Narita Airport looks like any airport in the US – busy, full of trucks going this way and that, all the same runway markings, and airplanes everywhere with the name of the airline in English. I was expecting more Japanese characters on the tarmac but once we were inside the airport they were everywhere. We had to go through security again to get to the gate for Singapore. It hit me again how foreigners in the US must feel who are unable to speak English. Thankfully most of the security employees seemed to know English to some degree. It’s a little overwhelming looking at all the signs and trying to find the English that is buried somewhere between all the Japanese characters. All of the airport workers were well dressed in red uniforms with the women wearing red berets. All wore white gloves. The outside airport workers all wore hard hats.

So, what do you do to keep busy on a 13 hour flight? You read a magazine/book, eat, sleep, watch a movie or two, eat, sleep some more, eat again, and read again and you are there. Sounds like the easy life!

The duty free and snack shops in the airport are full of Japanese items including food. I’m feeling hungry but I’m not sure how adventurous I’ll be! Our flight to Singapore starts boarding at 5:10pm (which is 3:10am US time) and takes off at 5:55pm. Well, we’re heading to the shop – time to become adventurous!

4:50pm
The snack shop was interesting! We saw raw squid stuffed with rice, vacuumed packed and sitting at room temperature on a shelf, assorted dried fish, and in the refrigerated section raw squid guts. I did manage to find Ritz Bits and a coke – at least I THINK that’s what they are! You can buy Kimonos, Hello Kitty paraphernalia, rice paper crafts, wood carvings of Sumo wrestlers, and a huge assortment of Japanese chocolates and candies.

12:00am, Wednesday, September 5, 2007 - Changi Airport, Singapore

This is one of the cleanest, prettiest airports we have ever been in! It lived up to what we had heard about it. Ryan read somewhere that you aren’t allowed to take pictures inside the airport so we didn’t. Before we went through customs we hit an ATM just to find out none of our cards work! Thankfully we had some cash on us and after we exchanged it for Singapore dollars we were on our way. I saw a stand selling Orchids – I would like to find out if I can bring them back to the states as they were GORGEOUS and really not all that expensive. Customs was the easiest I’ve ever been through and than on to our luggage. Once we had that we found the line for the taxis. When we arrived at the front of the line the man who had been directing everyone to a taxi disappeared. After we had stood there a little while waiting for him to come back we headed to a taxi – that’s a mistake! We learned that there are two lines for taxis and you need to wait until you are pointed to one before going. Oh well – we got a taxi and headed to the Traders Hotel where we are staying. We couldn’t see much as it was night but we noticed a lot of lush greenery lining the road ways. Oh – not only do they drive on the other side of the road here but they drive on the other side of the car…and I’m supposed to learn to do that after moving here – the girl who can’t parallel park! We’ll see how that goes!

We checked into the hotel and than around 1am headed down the street to the 7-11 (yep, they have those here) for a soda and some chips. That was about all that was open that time of the night other than very expensive room service. Once back in our room we got ready for bed and I asked Ryan to plug in our small travel fan for noise. OOPSJ We somehow blew the motor even though it was plugged into a converter. It smoked and blew a fuse – there was a moment of concern as we weren’t sure that it wouldn’t set off the fire alarm!

Well, more tomorrow after we can actually see the city a little!