A very long travel day March 6th and 7th

My coworker arrived at the terminal about 2 hours prior to boarding. We hung out in the Red Carpet Club for an hour. Enjoying such treats as trail mix and yogurt. By the time we got back to the gate they had started boarding seating group number 2. As I was in one I went in and got settled.

All told the flight went extremely smoothly, just a few rough patches of turbulence. Once we had crossed the IDL we were pushing against 130 MPH headwinds. So the total flight time took 10 hours 15 minutes, which happens to be about an hour longer than I like being in an enclosed space. The landing was rough due to high winds and a lack of visibility. As always it is extremely reassuring to have the front of the plane drop in its time after the rear wheels have touched. It just took one bounce before the rear wheels were on the ground.

As the flight was longer than was expected we arrived in Customs at the same time as 7 other flights, it was extremely busy. The only thing that made it bearable was the fact that I was able to get through Immigration without waiting. When we came out of customs we were met by a guy from work who informed us that we had missed the 1730 bus to base. This is something I knew. So the options was to either wait for 2 hours for the next bus or ride the train.

The train won out on the fact that on the way to the train is a Starbucks, and with being awake for 18 hours I was starting to fade. I informed the guy that I would be able to get my coworker and myself to the right place. He was relieved as he lives in Yokohama and it would have been very time consuming to travel down to Yokosuka and then back. Taking the train also proved to be the perfect opportunity to use the NEX Narita Express. It used to take three hours to get from Narita to Yokosuka. It took two and a half hours today with about a 20 minute delay at one station.

The one thing I failed to account for was how could it was going to be, it was 38 when we got in. Sitting on the platform waiting for the train to come, it got pretty cold. The luggage did not bother me like I thought it might have, but we were traveling at a lower demand time.

We arrived at the hotel at 2200 local time, 500 pacific. The check in process was a breeze, after getting set in the room. We went out for a walk around town. There is nothing like a hot curry to warm you up on a cold day. So we ate at Nirvanas, I had the Spinach Chicken Curry and Garlic Nan as always.

As I am posting this I opened my luggage to discover a nice not from the TSA about searching my bag. Everything is there, it is packed a littler better than I had managed. I should have known not to put a bag of 10 yen coins wrapped around my tripod with some wires. I can only imagine what it must have looked like. It is the slightest bit reassuring that they checked it.

Here are some photos

Travel Day