Well, we’d booked our flight, made all the arrangements for the hotel, knew what we needed to do once we got there….  and the big day arrived!

We left Tulsa “International” Airport for Detroit, arrived about two hours later, and after one final western meal of cheeseburgers and fries, made our way to the plane.

The 747 waiting for us.

Thirteen hours later we arrived at Narita International Airport.  Ugh, thirteen hours.  My legs felt like they were made of stone.  It was a rather uneventful flight, thank goodness.  The food was fair.  I mean it was airline food, what do you want, right?  Although the crew was pretty stingy about pretty much everything, which sucked.  Contrast this with the crew on the way back, and I’m wondering what that was all about.

But like I said, we arrived.  It was an incredible feeling to finally see the land I’d wanted to visit since that first Japanese class back in high school, circa 1989.  Yeah, so I’m fairly old, deal with it!

Since then I’d picked up the studies on and off, collected a bunch of books, but recently I’d gotten back into it a lot more, and the bug finally took hold.  Call it an early middle-age crisis, call it what it is, I don’t really care.  I felt I needed to do this while I could still afford to, and while I still had the chance.  No time like the present.

I hope you enjoy reading this journal as much as we enjoyed living it, yeah that sounds corny and passe, but I mean it.  While planning this trip I noticed a big lack of real-life experience stories on the net regarding trips to Japan.  It’s either the guys with the working visas talking about how great their everyday lives are, or a cursory page here and there.  I wanted to do something that I wished I’d seen before the trip…  So here it is!  Enjoy!

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