11:28 PST Thursday May 3, 2007 - Sea-Tac Airport

Ahhh... so close yet, so far. An hour before I can board my flight to Tokyo. Finally! There's a bunch of Japanese people here at the gate, naturally, and hearing them speak is making me even more excited about the trip. Hehehe... cute Japanese girls are around.

Huh, I just realized I'm still flying United. I was hoping to at least fly JAL on this last leg of the trip. Why? Two words: Japanese stewardresses. LOL.

I wonder who will be my seatmate. I hope it's a girl and I hope she's cute... and Japanese. If not, I may have lucked out again; my seat letter is A and I'm correct, that's an aisle seat.

40 minutes to go... I hope there are good movies on, or that I fall asleep again. How long is this flight again? TEN HOURS. Yay. I can't wait. Sucks that it's still another hour train ride from Narita to Tokyo, but it doesn't matter, I'll be in JAPAN!

Ahhh kawaiii! A gaggle of girls walked by. They caught my attention when one of them exclaimed, "Uso!" then the rest of them made really cute, girly noises. Haha...

Guh, I'm feeling sleepy again. Maybe that's a good thing.

Heh, or I can just listen to other people's conversations and see how much/little I can understand. (Got two girls sitting next to me... so yeah.)

8:40 CST Thursday May 3, 2007 - Somewhere Over the Midwest

On the flight from Chicago to Seattle now... I lucked out; the flight isn't full and there are plenty of empty seats. The woman who was assigned to sit next to me moved elsewhere. Yay! Oooh, Edward Norton is on the screen. I think they said the in-flight movie was "The Painted Veil."

Looks like I'm skipping breakfast. Didn't eat anything before I left the house, and I haven't eaten anything since. Earlier, the flight attendants came around with "snack boxes" for sale. Perhaps it's because I'm used to flying Northwest, but I still am a bit taken aback by them charging for the airplane food. Never had to pay for food on Northwest. Oh well. At least I think I'll have time to grab a quick bite to eat in Seattle before the flight to Tokyo leaves. Hopefully I can find something healthier than fast-food. I've not had fast-food in such a long time it seems. Go me. ^_^

This movie is starting to look interesting. Maybe I'll watch a bit.

1st Travel Journal Entry

3:10 AM Thursday May 3, 2007 - BWI Airport

I'm hella early. There's no one at the check-in counters. Still, all the benches in this area are taken up by other waiting travelers. Most of them are sprawled out, napping. I'm actually sitting on a long bench, in between two sleeping people. LOL The guy on my left snores...and for some reason, the elevator on my left keeps opening randomly and no one ever comes out.

Holy shit!!! The cops in the airport ride around on SEGWAYS!!! Those things are SO fun to ride! *sigh* I think that will be the highlight of this morning, unfortunately. I didn't bring my iPod since I wanted to devote all my senses to Japan once I got there. The only major piece of electronics I'm bringing is my camera. I already took a pre-flight pic at home. Unless something extraordinary happens between now and my arrival in Japan, I'm not taking any more pictures.

Oh... shoot me. It's only 3:24 AM.

Um... OK. There's one counter for e-tickets with bags to check and another for international destinations. My first guess is the latter, but... I'm not sure any more.

You know, I think this is the cleanest US airport I've ever seen. Then again, it's 3:30 AM and the cleaning staff is still going over the place. Narita, however, is ALWAYS nice and clean. Mom still talks about the cleanliness of that airport.

For some reason, there's a small crowd lined up at the US Airways counters. I mean seriously? There is NOBODY at ANY of the ticket counters! I wonder where they're going.