Welcome to Japan and Jet Lag

29 + hours awake and a half hour of sleep later and I'm sitting on a hotel bed, a fresh yukata on, and feeling like I've been on an extremely strange boat for seven days straight. Considering an airplane is just another form of transportation, this shouldn't be so surprising. However, since this is only my second time traveling through the air, I consider the fact that I didn't get cabin fever admirable.

So, the day began at 4:30 in the morning in the USA, on the road and meeting at the airport by 6:30 to board our 9:05 flight from Logan to Dullas to Narita. Overall flight time? around 14-15 hours. Which was impressive, considering all our flights were on time and got in earlier than expected.

But before I get into the fun stuff about stepping onto an Airplane bound for Japan, let's go over the stupid stuff.

Things I learned about airplanes:

1) The air is extremely different. Up at high altitudes for long periods of time (flying to the other side of the world for example), your nose gets all weird, throat dry, and basically you don't feel 100% hunky dory. It also turns whatever they feed you into a rock in your stomach that makes you wonder what's really in it.

2) Airplane food isn't all bad. Granted, it's not gourmet fare, french posh restaurant that goes all out, but it's not bad. Of course, I may have been lucky, but the food I had wasn't really that bad. I can imagine worse, but, well, there you go. I was lucky. I also ate four meals today plus energy bars and snacks, so I suppose the rock in my stomach might have just been from excess of food.

3) All that research they did on how light effects your melatonin levels? Yeah, absolutely true. As soon as people pulled down those window shades, I was screwed with trying to stay awake. Of course, I only snoozed for about 30 minutes in toto, but still, it was a sure confirmation of all that scientific work.

and finally 4) though I can completely understand the advantages of flying, I much prefer my feet on the ground or on a boat.

Now, for the fun. Sometime around the fifth stupid movie they played and the woman by our window finally opened the shade, something I had been itching to do again since she closed it on the icy Russian landscape and the Arctic Ocean, we finally saw Japan. Well, Japan at about 40,000 feet and fogged by a lot of clouds. But JAPAN!!! It was there below us and if you think the earth all looks the same at 40,000 feet, sorry, you're wrong. Japan, though obviously terra, is definitely not the USA... nor Canada or Russia or Alaska. It's Japan.

First thing noticed? The ocean scape, it's flat towards the coast... well, flatter, but quickly ascends up into mountains that look nothing like they do on the East Coast. Sadly, I didn't get pictures of the hazy mountains, but god was that awesome. It was around then that my sleep deprived brain began to register the fact that I was in Japan and slammed me with an euphoric high. Though that also might have been the altitude. Either way, once that window shade was up, not much else could get me to look away from that window.

Second thing noticed? Masks. They all wear masks. Okay, well not all of them, but you know those photos and tv clips of the Japanese and they're all wearing masks? Yeah, that's absolutely real. Especially since they're paranoid about the H1N1 (they were talking about it when we walked through the terminal into Narita) and, frankly, it makes a lot of sense. You're on an airplane, you're in a throng of people, what better place to spread germs? Hello breeding ground. Truthfully, they're miles ahead of us. And not just in relation on the earth's surface.

Third thing noticed? Toilets. All the stuff about toilets, yeah, it's also true. Though I wasn't so adventurous to immediately pop a squat in the Narita airport and instead opted to use one of the American adapted facilities, they were there. And the one in the hotel room I'm currently sitting in has as many buttons as a telephone. If not more.

I would keep the list going, but, not only would it become boring, but I would probably fall asleep on my keyboard. Which wouldn't be good for any of us. Just know that, through all of this the general message is "I love this country."

All I can say is, sitting here on a very firm bed in a hotel by Narita airport, fresh yukata on as my feet wiggle in complimentary slippers, excited doesn't even begin to cover this.

And on tv, they're showing a Japanese cross country skier with one arm. I repeat, I love this country.

Ai out-