Safe and sound in the glamorous Navy Lodge

The trip to Japan was a blur of bad food and time zones.  A full day of travel to get to Seattle, then hours of waiting to get on the flight to Japan.  Ten hours over the Pacific.  The airport food, the crowds, the inability to sleep, the horror, the horror.

Blake and I traveled separately from Albany to Chicago to Seattle.  Blake got to Seattle around noon on Wednesday, April 27, and I arrived about 8:30pm that same day (thank you, United for canceling the earlier flight).  I've always wanted to see Seattle and thanks to the Navy... well, I still didn't get to see it.  It was too dark out.  We sat in the airport until three the next morning, when we finally boarded the flight for Japan.

I was getting over a hacking cough (which I'm sure you remember and are very glad is no longer near you).  I bought a package of NyQuil, which didn't knock me out as I'd hoped it would.  Maybe it was because an hour after we boarded, Blake poked me and said, "Jeeana, they're serving breakfast."  In my stupefied state I responded, "I like breakfast." (I like turtles)

I have no pictures of that breakfast.  It defies words.

In and out of sleep, a few in-flight movies later, and it was dinner time.  Here we come to our first pictures.

Apparently, this is pasta

Apparently, this is chicken

Blake and I ordered one pasta and one chicken.  It's a good thing we decided to go halves because I'm not sure we could have stomached an entire portion of either one of those meals.

It was all worth it, though, because after ten hours in the air, we finally landed in Japan.

Pic of mountains from the plane

Landing at Yokota AFB

Blake's sponsor from the squadron met us at the airport and we finally got to see Japan.  We were really too tired to take much in that first day.  We checked into the lodge, checked out HSL-51, and tried in vain to adjust to the 13-hour time difference.

Almost a week later, Blake is almost completely adjusted to the new time.  I'm still waking up a little too early, but last night I slept the whole night without waking up.  So, I've successfully accomplished something it takes babies at least a few months to do!