Arriving in Japan

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9am - So, 30 hours before I'm supposed to touch down in Tokyo, a 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck in Japan, the epicenter just off the coast of a city I'll be visiting in just 5 days or so. Andy is already there on a different trip, although in Kobe, so I don't know how much he felt the quake, and I think Hummel may have arrived to Japan on vacation just hours before the quake hit. I don't know that for sure yet, and I'm also not positive of the exact epicenter of the quake.

Here's the story so far:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/03/24/quake.japan.ap/index.html

11:33am - Since I'm flying business on an international American Airlines flight, I get to spend my time at LAX in their executive lounge or whatever they call it. Lynne will be disappointed that I won't be using the free drink ticket they handed me on my way in the door. I had just gotten a coffee at Starbucks. The lounge is nice, I just wish they had free wireless internet, but the whole airport has been corrupted by T-Mobile. I hate T-Mobile.

I'm supposed to meet up here in LA with Reed, Rick's new son-in-law, as we'll be flying together to Narita, but I haven't seen him yet. We'll easily find each other on the plane.

3:33pm (LA time, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of British Columbia) - I don't know how I'm going to handle 12 hours of business class. I just had sake and a nice Japanese meal for lunch. I tried to save the flight attendant her embarrassment when she accidentally gave my sake a refill of water. Oh well. It was practically empty.

We got into Tokyo around 4:45pm Tokyo time, then took our domestic flight to Komatsu. Getting through customs and immigration was pretty easy. We were met by several representatives of the local tourism board and government, and they had a van waiting right outside the terminal in special access parking, and off we went to Yamanaka, a smaller town, where our hotel was. Sure enough, they informed us when we landed that Wajima was hit by the quake and we'd no longer be going there on the trip. They'd change things up a bit and just find us a different town with similar sorts of things to see and do and eat. It was 10pm (5am LA time) when we got in, but we got a small snack to keep us from waking up starving in the middle of the night, and that small snack turned into a ton of food. We went to bed a bit after 11pm stuffed silly.

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Comments

[Mom]

C&H
Glad to hear you've arrived safely! I like this pic of Calvin and Hobbes!

[mother-in-law]

HURRAY FOR YOU!
So excited that I was able to find your blog. I hope to read more as you travel. So happy and proud for you.