Trip to Japan: the Sequel

...because it's just no fun to have a "Part I" that is actually followed by "Part II". It's much more fun to throw expectations out the window and generally be dorky about things.

Well yet again I'm over here apologizing for the delay, believe me when I say it WILL happen again and I'm truly sorry for making you wait, but hopefully the wait will be worth it-ish, or at least not so underwhelming that you decide to never read my blog again, because then there would really be no point in writing.

So all right, last time I checked I was on a plane bound for Seoul, South Korea, where I would have a layover in order to hitch a ride on a plane destined for Kansai International Airport in Japan.

This airpline flight took about 13 hours, which is a very long time to sit on AN ENOURMOUS AIRPLANE THAT ACTUALLY HAD TWO FLOORS DEAR LORD IN HEAVEN ABOVE I'M STILL TRYING TO WRAP MY HEAD AROUND THE SIZE OF THIS HUGE AIRPLANE -- ahem. Anyway. The air did not work, so I was stuck on an airplane filled with a bunch of people and no cool air. You know me and heat -- it's almost impossible for me to sleep without cool air, much less trying to sleep sitting up.

On the bright side, the couple next to me were super sweet, an elderly couple headed to meet their family in the Philippines. They were very kind and we chatted a bit. (I know, I know, Rachel? Chat?! WILLINGLY???) Anyway as we're sitting on the airplane it's time for our first meal on this giant floating bus. The options were chicken, beef, or a korean dish called Bi Bim Bap. Now, I've actually never eaten Korean food. But I figured it was a good time to get used to new things since I was headed for 6 months in a foreign country. The stewardess was like "Are you sure?" and of course I'm like "Oh yeah, sure," and she looked pretty worried when she handed me the meal. But it was good! the only thing I wasn't really a fan of was the seaweed soup, because basically it tasted like lukewarm sea water to me. It's probably an acquired taste.  But the Bi Bim Bap was quite yummy. The most amusing part was seeing the stewardess's face when I handed the tray back with only a bite or two left (there was a lot of food), and about one third of the seaweed soup. (I really did try to like it). She was like blown away that I'd actually managed to eat it, I think she was afraid she'd have to dump the whole meal because I was some dumb tourist who thought Korean food would be an  "experience". Well, it was an experience, and some time I'd like to eat Korean food that isn't going to be served on an airplane.

After that meal, the second meal offered chicken, or beef and noodles or chicken and noodles and I went for the chicken with rice, which happened to have a nice teriyaki sauce and was quite yummy. it also had a creamy cheesecake like dessert. yum! they also served coffee and offered me alcohol, though i declined the alcohol in favor of seattle's best coffee. Nice to know the PNW leaves it's mark all over the world, even on Korean Airlines.

In between the meals we got several servings of tea/coffee/juice/soda/etc, and while the plane floated over the ocean for about 13 hours I watched several movies: Rise of the Guardians, the new movie from DreamWorks. (I love it, the animation is fantastic and beautiful and I quite like the storyline, the only thing is I'm not sure if the movie is trying to make the moon a metaphor for God or not and I'm not so into that but otherwise I really like the message of the story so....) I also watched "Hotel Transylvania", which is a cute coming-of-age story about a vampire girl and her overprotective father. super cute. Then I watched Wreck-it Ralph, the new movie from Pixar, and that was also a great movie, super sweet, lighthearted, great story, all around just adorable.

...then I watched Rise of the Guardians again, in Japanese, because they had Japanese dubs on several of the movies. And then I watched Rise of the Guardians in English again. Then I tried to sleep for about an hour unsuccessfully, following that with another viewing of Rise of the Guardians, though I just skipped to my favorite parts.

The plane finally landed, and I was forced to once again chill with TSA, only due to the previous plane delays, I was pretty convinced I was going to miss my boarding. So it was more like me standing in line frantically glancing at  the clock like "it started boarding six minutes ago, I'm going to miss my flight noooooo, God, I can't sit in seoul for another ten hours or something, I'd go insane, nooooo"

well, long story short, I got there in time to board with everyone else in economy class. So no sob stories of me trapped in seoul, thank God. So after all that, the trip through customs in Japan was surprisingly straightforward. I filled out a paper that told them I had nothing particularly valuable, they waved me through. The only bit of excitement occurred when I accidentally dropped my passport and they were like "excuse me! you dropped it!" and pointed at my passport.  After that "craziness" (seriously, I was like 10 times more itimidated by the TSA people than by customs) I headed outside to find the shuttle stop that would take me to my hotel, where I met two women from france that might have been sisters and may have been a lesbian couple.

I don't know for sure, the two ladies were very nice, we discussed international politics some and the little boy they had with them stared at me with big blue eyes under a shock of white-blonde hair. Their english was very good and they were going to the same hotel as I, so we stood at the shuttle stop together. A Japanese family also rode in the shuttle but they were a bit intimidated by our use of English, so they didn't attempt conversation.

Finally we arrived at the Kansai Airport Spa Hotel, where I and my new acquaintances checked in and headed to our rooms, me lugging my two 25-pound carry-ons and both 50-poundish suitcases (ha, you forgot about those, didn't you? Well I DIDN'T, it's quite hard to forget that you're practically lugging around your body weight in luggage)

Annnd that my friends is where I shall end this post. Next post will have photos from the window of my hotel and also the bus ride to Kobe. Kansai International Airport is in Osaka, not Kobe. But more on that next post. Which hopefully will come sooner than later, but no promises.