Friday, April 10, 2009

Day 1 - Takeoff

The big day was finally here, the day we were leaving for Tokyo. After 6 months of planning it was time to get on the plane and hope for the best. We had decided that since Japan was 13 hours ahead of us we'd get an early start on the time change. Three days before leaving we started on the Anti Jet Lag Diet and two days before we started ourselves on Melatonin. Nothing was going to stop us from seeing everything we wanted to see in Tokyo, it was us vs. sleep and we wanted to win. The night before our morning flight we didn't go to bed. We stayed up all night, watched the big Japanese win of the World Baseball Classic and went to a diner at 4am just to keep ourselves from dozing off (even though it does go against the diet linked above). Around 5 something AM we did fall asleep for about an hour but were soon back up and ready to make the 45 minute drive to Newark airport.



Unfortunately for us the sun glare that day was unbearable and it ended up being over an hour and a half drive. Oh well. The airport ended up being almost empty. No lines at the Continental check in counter and we breezed through security. Making it to the terminal was a pretty easy process, and we had hours to spare.



Outside the window our 777 was waiting to take us on the 14 hour trip to Narita. Luckily we had our secret weapons to deal with that, Ambien for me, Xanax for her. The plan was to fall asleep soon after takeoff and sleep until it was time to wake up in Japan.

And sleep we did, for about 5 hours, right through the first meal, Yes, that's right, first meal, as in you get more than one, and for free too! Unheard of!

A whole menu of options. Who knew that the skies could be so friendly? So far the plan was working, after waking up we got changed, brushed out teeth, washed face, and were ready to take on a new day.

Mid-flight snack. American.

Then we crossed the international date line, so I suppose that takes us to Day 2.