Japan Here We Come!

 Wednesday morning came way too early for us.  We had stayed up til midnight packing for Japan and did not sleep well.  But, the alarm went off at 5 am and our adventure was about to start.

Naggy flew in on Tuesday and we spent Tuesday afternoon getting her up to date on all the activities that the girls had going while we were gone.  Between school, gymnastics, two birthday parties and Pappy coming on the weekend, they will stay busy!

Before we left Wednesday morning, we sat out the girls "treasures" on the table to find when they woke up.  They had world place mats, a real globe (borrowed from Grammy) and two wooden airplanes.  Naggy also read them a note that we left. 

 

We had to give our hugs, kisses and goodbyes to our girls while they were still sleeping and off we went to meet Grammy and Pa to go to the airport.

We were pretty pumped to get to ride first class on our 13 hr trip to Tokyo.  It was still a very long plane ride, but it was so much better being able to stretch out and lay down!  We took the girl's Little Big-Headed Baby with us so we could snap pictures with her at all our stops.  We thought the girls might get a kick out of that.  One of the perks of flying first class is the Admirals Club.  We got a free bottle of water, coffee, fruit and cookies before it was time to load up and head to Tokyo.

LBH Baby enjoyed a cookie at the admirals club and her own seat with orange juice in the first class cabin.

 

After we took off, the stewardess brought us Bose Noise Canceling headphones, and I opted to enjoy the movie Monster's University.  Then they started bringing food and it seemed to go on forever!  At first we thought we were just getting a light snack of mix nuts.

But that was followed up with an appetizer, a salad, then soup, then the main course (I had ravioli and Keith had the steak) and finally an ice cream sundae.  Can you say spoiled?  :)

The 13 hr flight was not so bad at all under those awesome conditions.  It was hard to try to make ourselves sleep but we all got at least a 2-3 hr nap.  We got to Tokyo at 4:30 their time (1:30 TX time).  We had made sure to ask if our bags would be checked all the way through to Okinawa and were told multiple times it would.  So after we went through immigration, we decided we would go by the baggage carousal to make sure...sure enough, there was all our luggage.  So we got it, went through customs and then found our way back to the Japan Airlines ticket counter to recheck our baggage and go back through security.  We had time, so no big deal but with very little sleep and the anxiety of a foreign airport...I could have used a Dr. Pepper!  :)

LBH Baby didn't mind flying Economy on Japan Airlines

We took off for Okinawa at 7:30 pm.  We were in good ol economy on this 3 hr leg of the trip and it wasn't so bad.  The plane was only one third full so we could spread out.  I think we all slept more on this leg of the trip than we did on the long one.  We got to Okinawa at 10:30 and after claiming our luggage we met up with our fellows from EMRO.  We got to the hotel about 11:10 (which was 8:10 TX time).

Talk about a long day...we had been up for over 24 hrs with very little sleep.  But that did not stop us from setting up our little traveling wifi router and skyping with our girls!  They were all in good spirits.  Naggy said that they really enjoyed their "treasure" of red and white play doh this morning.

Tomorrow promises to be long but fun - we get to go see one of the largest aquariums in the world!