Knowing that this would be long and that i would want to sleep for a good portion of the flight, I made the decision to stay up all night Wednesday in preparation for the sleep i wanted to have on the arduous flight across the pacific. This wasn't too tough since i had quite a bit of work email i needed to catch up on. Erica napped fir a few hours and we made it down to the shuttle by 5am. Almost as soon as we got to the airport, i could feel how tired i truly was (lugging around over 100lbs of luggage helps) as we stood in line to check in at american airways. I was shocked by the signs at american announcing the pricing rates for checked bags. Apparently now you must pay to have the privilege of an airline potentially losing and or damaging your bags. $15 for the first bag and $25 for the second, if your bag is over 50lbs then you pay an additional $50, over 70lbs and its an extra $80 - makes you want to travel right? Erica and I were worried that our bags were going to add a few hundred extra bucks to our trip but since we were flying JAL and not just American, we weren't subject to the baggage fees. JAL lets you have up to 2 bags per person for free and each bag can be up to 70lbs. Thanks JAL.
By the time we made it through security, i was dragging pretty bad. By the time we hit the gate, i was a sloth and within minutes of sitting down i was out. Erica woke me to let me know that i was snoring, and the wait to board the flight to Chicago seemed like forever with lots of nodding off for a few seconds in between.
The flight to Chicago went quickly, I must have been out the entire way. O'hare is one of the largest airports in the world and the walk from the plane was evidence of that fact. The international terminal at O'hare is a completely separate entity than the main building and terminals. This means that you have to leave the airport, board a train to a new building then go through security again before reaching the gate. There are also no signs warning you that there are no resaurants or stores past security so once you realize that you most likely will need to go through security yet again after a meal or just trying to kill time at the stores.
We had a unique experience while trying to exchange money at the currency exchange counter. The sign in front listed yen at .93 compared to the dollar, and the exchange takes 1% on top as their fee. This isn't the best rate around but you pay for convinience so that didn't bother me. I handed the girl at the counter $500 and she returned to me $4 and change (apparently they don't do foreign coins) and 46,000 yen. I looked at her and told her that this can't be right - the dollar is worth more than the yen so i should have over 50,000 yen for my $500. She looked at me with an "oh no you didn't" face and told me that all the info i needed was on the receipt. When i told her i didn't care what the receipt said, she didn't give me enough money, she bitchingly told me to give her the yen back and take my money back, - i did. I hate it when people try to rip me off. We would have to wait until we arrived in tokyo to exchange money.
Finally we boarded the plane at about 12pm. The JAL flight was on a 747 which is a huge plane. Two floors and 80+ rows, though about half the plane is first and business class seats. I realize now that Thursday is probably the most popular day for traveling to japan, since you will arive a day later and still have the entire weekend. Coach was pretty full and we weren't lucky enough to have an extra seat in between us to stretch out. Even though the seats are somewhat comfortable, they are still small and without too much leg room especially if you want to place a carry on item under the seat in front of you. So needless to say I was uncomfortable and tired and this is before we took off. Once we were in the air i noticed that there were no individual cooling vents and the sun was going to be on us the entire trip. This heated things up pretty good, adding to the general discomfort. I closed the shades within the first hour but spent most of the next 11 hoping for more water and some cold air. They had a display which showed you the plane's progress and stats, such as altitude, speed and air temp. It was -70 outside, and i wished i could crack the window just a hair to even things out.
Each seat had a screen and a control in the armrest, there were movies, music and games to choose from. Unfortunately in coach the selection is limited and movies play on a schedule which means you can't control when they start. Also the games absolutely suck, i have actually programmed better games than what this system offers, and i wouldn't call my games stellar. I did get to see Iron Man finally though i came in 30minutes late and had to watch the beginning the next time it played. I also watched forbidden kingdom with jackie chan and jet lee as well as indiana jones and the crystal skull - which still sucked. Most of the games were bad rebrands of arcade games, tetris, space invaders etc but they were severely lacking and the controls left a lot to be desired. Sometimes there was so much latency in the controls, it was hard to tel what was happening. I did spend some time with a card game called aces - a solitaire type game with the goal being to remove all cards except the 4 aces. The computer constantly screws you and the control lag screws you - so when i was finally able to complete the game successfully after 4 hrs of off and on play, i quit.
They feed you 3 times during the flight. The first time happens almost as soon as you reach cruising altitude. Then again in the middle and once about 2 hrs before landing. The middle meal is really just a snack sandwich withe the crust cut off. The other 2 were full meals with salad, entree, 2 side items and a desert. Over all the food was pretty good. Drinks came around more often then food. I figured that they would be offering drinks once every hour or so, but there was a middle 5 hrs where nothing was really offered at all. Since the plane was so warm this became a pretty uncomfortable time and eventually we had to call for a stewardess to bring some water.
Off and on i would say we slept for about a third of the flight. It was pretty sporadic and often i woke because of being uncomfortably warm or due to a cramp in some part of my body. I would suggest dressing cool, since they give you a blanket but no vents, and also not putting anything under the seat in front of you. I wish i had done these.
It is pretty amazing how high up the plane is during most of the flight. I was able to get a shot of the clouds below while we were over the pacific about 2 hours from japan.I was too happy for words to get off the plane in narita. Standing and walking never felt so good! The rest of the time in narita was very organized and easy. Going through immigration was simple. there was a 10-15 minute wait for our bags, which isn't bad at all. Customs was a breeze - awesome. The exchange rate was better in tokyo than it was in the states so waiting was worth it, and even my poor japanese came in handy asking for directions. We soon were on the Narita express and headed for Shinjuku to meet Marc and check into the hotel. By the time we get to the hotel it is friday at 6pm local time or about 5am friday atlanta time - a complete 24hrs from when we headed to the airport on thursday.
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