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Entry #5: 5/24/2010
The Longest Flight
I have to write a thank you to Mr. and Mrs. Noemer for driving Kevin and I to the airport this morning at 4:00 am. Wait, was that this morning? I can’t even tell anymore. I haven’t seen the sun set in an unusual amount of time, with the whole traveling forward in time as we flew west. I think we literally skipped an entire evening. Neat. Anyway, we saw a ridiculous amount of traffic for 4 in the morning on a Monday, so thanks for putting up with that guys. Oh, also for the free bagel.
So far, everything has gone much more smoothly than expected, given how much of a pain all the planning was. At the time of my writing this, we are sitting in one of the terminals of Tokyo, Narita with a good 3 hours to kill before our flight to Beijing. All of our flights have been on time, security has been a sinch, even finding our connecting flight in Japan was completely painless. I just hope I haven’t counted my sheep too soon without having gone through customs at Beijing
yet. Our 12 hour flight from Chicago to Tokyo was the longest I have ever sat still in my life, but they gave us two meals, as many movies as we could watch, and the stewardesses were incredibly polite. Not to mention they offered you more tea than you can shake a stick at. Poor Kevin though, there was no room to put his carry on bag under the seat in front of him and the woman who occupied that seat had the thing in recline the entire trip. Good thing he isn’t claustraphobic, he didn’t have an inch to move his legs. In hindsight we could have just swapped seats, but where is the comedic value in that?
Airports
It has been pretty neat seeing all these airports I’ve never been to before. From Ronald Reagan you can see a whole bunch of the monuments in DC from take off. I lead kayaking trips to that area all the time, but there is nothing like seeing it from the sky. The Chicago airport’s run ways are absolutely massive, like some sort of pavement ocean. Just getting to the run way from which we
could take off took what felt like half an hour. It was like the plane was a giant mouse going through a maze to find a piece of cheese. Oh, and the sights from the flight to Tokyo were pretty amazing. I tried to give an idea of what route we took in the map at the top, but basically we flew along the Canadian Rockies for a good few hours. It was incredible, almost like Google Earth. You could see mountains and glaciers all around you, it was a mountaineer’s paradise.
The only thing we haven’t seen much of yet is Tokyo, so I’ll have to take a break from writing this in a moment to go walk around. Not like we’re pressed for time or anything. The one thing I noticed is that there are special rooms for smokers that look like some sort of testing laboratories. They’re completely sealed off, and the windows make it look like the people in there are being presented in a zoo. Oh, and the bathrooms here are amazing. I thought the automated systems at the University of Maryland were impressive, but they put ours to shame. Such dedication to going
paperless for sustainability too, good job Japan! Anyway, I don’t think I can tolerate sitting for another minute, so I’ll continue this once we’re in our Beijing hotel.
One hour later
I just had to open my mouth. As soon as I left to go look around the airport, our flight was delayed. Only a short delay though, 30 minutes. And we some how managed to arrive at the time previously established on the itinerary. Guess we had a fast pilot? Anyhow, the Tokyo airport wasn't as big as the other ones, but packed with just as many shops. There's one area of the building that is reminiscent of a mall, a whole bunch of stores squeezed next to each other with just as many crowds. They even have ATMs that you can purchase traveler's insurance from. Man, Beijing sure was something though. The Beijing airport is humongous, I imagine you could fit the airplanes right inside the building if you wanted to. I don't think I've ever been in such a large building. Anyway, I am completely exhausted at this point. I'd write more about the hotel tonight but I just want to
sleep. More on Beijing next time!
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Allison
non-member comment
Yay!
So glad you made it there safe and sound! You must have looked like quite the little tourist taking all those pictures of the airport, haha. I'm so excited for you, I can't wait to hear more about your trip!