We arrived at the airport at 9:00 am, said our goodbyes, packed the baby into the ergo, grabbed all the bags and stroller and were off! We went to the United lines which told us to go to the ANA airline. So we did, everyone there hardly spoke any English and it took about 1hr to get through the line since there was a fee for Beau to ride on the plane and they were "calculating" this fee. We finally got through the lines and security was a breeze. By the time we got to our gate, we had 10mn until boarding. We were the first to get on because we had a baby. I ran to go to the bathroom and grab a soda, since I had plans to get some food and coffee when we got there but that was not going to happen!
We boarded the plane, and waited to take off! I started to nurse Beau as we taxied down the runway, they pressurized the cabin and Beau lost it! Poor guy, his ears were really hurting and we hadn't even taken off yet! I was really worried that this was going to continue for the next 10 hours. Once we got up into the air and leveled out Beau stopped crying and fell asleep. He was wonderful the rest of the plane ride and all the stewardesses loved him! They were all Japanese and were giving him little toys to play with and making faces at him. The plane ride was better than I expected, they had TV's in all the head rests and I was able to watch a couple movies and the food was pretty good. We had Goulash for dinner and pasta with shrimp and scallops for breakfast! On the menu there was a Japanese option and a Western option.
The stewardesses were wonderful and the plane was almost brand new. Much smaller than I thought though, it was 4 in the middle and 2 on the sides. A lot of turbulence in the very beginning, when I looked out the window the wings were flexing up and down really hard and I was worried that one might break off!! A little scary, but things smoothed out for the most part. The toilets in the plane had bidets and were heated!
After 10 hours at 41,000 ft in the air and looking down on heaven over an infinite ocean, we saw land!
The decent was fine and Beau did not need to nurse the whole time we descended. The landing was smooth and within minutes we were in the airport! We made our way through customs where I got my SOFA stamp which allows me and Beau to be here for more than 90 days. All of the Japanese people were very nice. We stopped at a small booth with food thinking we could get something very American and this is where the culture shock first set in. I couldn't read hardly anything and all they had was sushi, rice balls and some very small sandwiches. EVERYTHING has shrimp in it! haha! So I tried some sushi and it was, interesting. There was a woman from the shipyard with a sign for PSNS. We met up with her and about 8 other men (only one of which had their wife with them) we loaded the back of this tiny bus and drove to the base. It took about 90mn to get there. It may very well have been the worst part of the whole trip.
We arrived at the base absolutely exhausted. We found two taxi's (couldn't fit everything in one) loaded them up and said, Sakura Residence! He drove us there and again culture shock! We were on the wrong side of the road!!! The back roads were so tiny, it was like what you see in movies where people are just hauling down these tiny back roads and it is just big enough for two cars to kind of pass by each other, I definitely had a few heart flutters! Finally after all of this, we were here!!! We arrived at around 9 at night so had been up for about 24 hours. Clardon magically appeared at the door the second we arrived and helped us bring our stuff to our apartment. The rest is history!
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