Our Journey To Japan

We arrived at the airport in Spokane, WA at 10 am on Friday and were in Seattle ready to catch our flight to narita airport by 1:30 pm. With us we brought 7 pieces of checked luggage, 3 carry-ons, 1 stroller system, and 2 more bags. We had alot of stuff. This is the biggest plane I have ever been on in my life. The Boeing 777 has 2 seats on each side and 5 seats in the middle. The lofty 10 hour flight did not feel as long as I thought it would with the 2 hot meals, drinks every hour, our own personal TV with movies to choose from and a very active baby to take care of! Gabe did very well for the first few hours until he realized his sore body was not waking up in his bed. This had been his 5th flight in 2 weeks. He was doing the best he could for a 2 month old! When we finally arrived at Narita Airport, everything felt normal. It felt like a regular airport until we reached immigration and I layed my eyes on the many black heads and suddenly realized I was the minority. We gathered our bags, 2 carts each of us, and made our way to get them delivered and make our train to Tokyo station. We ended up missing our first train by about 10 seconds which in the end almost made us miss our last possible train to Yamagata. The lights of Chiba are just amazing! You don't know condensed until you've been through Tokyo! By the time we got to Tokyo station we were so exhausted and hungry, but there was no time for anything. I had to take it all in as we quickly rushed through the maze of Japanese food stands and people rushing every direction. The Shinkansen is half a mile long and runs at nearly 80 miles and hour. By the time we finally found our car and hauled our luggage inside, we felt the sweltering heat of a car that is over 100 degrees on the inside while it is in the low 40's outside. A Japanese man who was helping me asked me jokingly in his broken english if I enjoyed their Japanese air conditioning, and I had to say I was less than impressed. We were of course concerned about our infant over-heating but Gabe did very well and the car eventually cooled down. After a long and exhausting 3 hour ride we finally made it to Yamagata City! After that was a 40 minute drive through winding streets to Higashine where we would stay with Ryan and Maki until we get settled into our apartment. The End.....or rather the beginning!