Mere Beginnings..

After several sweet but painful goodbyes, I left all that was comfortable and proceeded through security at Will Rogers. Security was not as bad as I thought, but the workers were equipped with cold stares and a no non-sense attitude. Apparently, this "terrorism" issue is quite important. So important that they had to make sure my shoes wouldn't explode.

Eventually I made it through the gates and went towards Gate 3, my departure gate, where I would munch on some overpriced food in hopes to ease my queasy stomach. Oddly enough, aiport chocolate milk is quite tasty. I waited for about an hour or so to finally board a cramped Mesa airline bound for Chicago O'hare. I couldn't sleep because I had no room to stretch out my longs legs. Stupid puberty, but that's another story. After two hours, I had enough flying for the day. Silly me, I still had a 13 hour flight ahead of me.

When we arrived at O'hare, I was quite tired and famished. So I got something to eat, waited around for Sean to get some money exchanged and then made it to my departure gate where again I waited nervously. All of this waiting wasn't really helping much either. Next, we boarded a Boeing 747 jet bound for Narita International airport in Tokyo. As I made my way onto the plane, I saw what I soon realized was first class and thought, "This won't be so bad", but no, the seats kept getting more squished-like as I made my way back. The seats were better than last time but not much.

I sat in the window seat and looked out at the unimpressive airport and said my 40 minutes goodbyes. Apparently, the workers forgot to fuel up one side of the plane and we where delayed for a little while. Finally, we took off and headed for Tokyo. The view below was beautiful. I tried to squash a few cars with my fingers but I was sadly unsuccessful. The next twelve hours were full of discomfort, watching 5 lame movies, talkingto the Taiwanese man next to us, and trying to sleep. I met a Canadian named Gabriel who had lived in Japan the previous year. He was quite nice and even bought Sean and I a small bottle of wine. The wine tasted like licking a toilet but hey it's the thought that counts, right?

After 12-13 excruciating hours we finally made it to Narita Internaional Airport...