On Sunday, September 3, 2017, my family and I flew to Japan, for a two month long, family trip. Our goal is to be with family, and specifically to help out my Mom’ s aunt and uncle. Being the procrastinators that we are, we waited until just days before the big trip, to start our packing. Because we will be gone so long, there were some extra things we wanted to bring, but space in our apartment (and Japan in general) is limited. We decided to splurge and buy some packing cubes and other space saving do-dads, and were very impressed. We were able to comfortably pack all of the essentials, with space to add in some extras
Reminiscing of trips past (Spain 2005)- who remembers this iconic TeamHadjes picture?
Sunday morning, at 1am, Uncle Jason picked us up, and drove us to the airport.
The SeaTac airport was the emptiest I had ever seen it. Our first plane ride flew down to LA, California, and was just over two hours long, with Alaska Airlines. Good time to take some cat naps!
Goodbye, USA!
We had a two-hour layover in LAX airport. After sitting for so long, I tried to teach Bayus some stretches.
The next flight went directly to Tokyo, Japan. It was an over eleven-hour flight, on Singapore Airlines. They served good food! Bayus’ favorite part was being able to ask the flight attendants, at any time, for unlimited free Hershey’s chocolate bars. This flight flew us into Monday, September 4, 2017, Mom and Dad’s 18th year anniversary.
Mom told us to take this chance to sleep, but we decided that drying out our eyeballs by watching movies for eleven hours straight, was a much better idea.
Hello Japan!
We arrived in Japan, in the Tokyo Narita airport, at 1:05pm Monday, Japan time, but 9:05pm Sunday night, home time.
While trying to figure out where our first train was, Bayus found these cool machines, with all sorts of fun prizes. They ran down an entire hallway. Our favorite were the green army men, Japanese style and riding rhinoceroses.
From the time we got off the plane, to the time all the train rides were done, was over five hours. Now we regretted not listening to Mom earlier, and tried hard to not fall asleep on the Japanese commuters around us.
Uncle Yoshio met us at the Isehara train station. We were so glad to see him again. He led us to our apartment, where the landlords were waiting.
They got us settled, and handed over the keys. They also left us some tasty snacks!
We all took showers, to get all the airport grime off, then fell onto our futon mattresses, in the two tatami mat rooms, and fell asleep.
Goodnight friends and family, we will miss you!
-Hannah
I remember that photo and loved the recreate!
Right?! I’m glad you remember. It was fun to revisit that picture and take a new one.
Don’t forget to eat the goodies! <3
Don’t worry Linda, they are making short work of those snacks!
This was fun to read! Thanks, Hannah! I laughed about how you guys decided to watch movies instead of sleeping on the plane.