Days 1 & 2: The Trip Over

Oy vey, what a day! It's been long and crazy but we finally made it and I got to hug my baby. :-) We started out at 7:00 am, when Susie picked us up to take us to the airport in Cedar Rapids. We got there with plenty of time to spare (go figure) and we got our four big bags checked through with no problem. We then settled down to wait for the plane. There was a short delay (20 minutes) and then we were off for Chicago. We had a 2 hour layover there but it went fast. Finally boarded the plane to Tokyo at about 1:00 pm but then had to wait an hour because there was luggage on the plane that belonged to a passenger that didn't board. It was probably one of the people who took the "overbooking deal". We were tempted, since they offered $800 plus hotel and meals and the same flight the next day, but we didn't have any way to contact Ike and knew he only had the day off to pick us up. Anyway, we finally took off for Japan! I took Ike's advice and stayed up the ENTIRE flight. :-O Each seat had it's own monitor on the headrest in front, so we watched lots of movies, tv shows and played games while listening to music. I read a lot, too. We were close to the back of the plane so I was able to get up and walk around a lot, which helped me tremendously. It was a huge plane so it wasn't as claustrophobic as I expected.

We finally landed on time at around 3:30 pm (this would be 1:30 am, our time) but couldn't get off the plane until the health officials came on board and cleared everyone. Went through customs without any trouble and then came out to find NO IKE! :-/ We waited and waited and then started to worry. I went to the information desk and had them page him (that was kind of funny hearing them pronounce our names) and then waited some more. Of course you'd think I would have thought ahead and gotten his cell phone number, wouldn't you???? That was a major screw up on my part. But I thought, maybe I have it in my email somewhere. So I had to walk the Tokyo airport and find an internet kiosk, which only took 100 yen coins, which I didn't have. I went to a snack kiosk, bought a bottle of water and got my change. Remember, I had been up for a good 20 hours straight and was a bit frazzled by now. I was impressed I could think this clearly. Plus I was really starting to freak out about Ike not being there. Anyway, went online and couldn't find his phone number anywhere. Emailed Bethany and decided to go back to where Pete was waiting with the luggage. Pete then went to see if he could find Ike's number somewhere online but had no luck, either. So now we've been waiting at the airport about 2 1/2 hours and I was about at the end of being able to hold it together. I went back to the information ladies who were SO sweet, and one of them said that she would try paging Ike at the other terminal. I thought, "the other terminal???" She did that and all of a sudden I heard these big running footsteps come up behind me and I felt a big bear hug. :-) Yeah, I bawled, but it was more out of relief that we weren't going to spend the night sleeping in the airport rather than seeing my baby. :-P No, it was a combination of them, acctually.Turned out he was at terminal one waiting all this time, and was even there early! He finally bugged someone enough and asked if we could have come in at any other part of the airport and they told him where. So considering the two of us screwed up, it was great we finally connected.

Okay, so now we had to run and catch a bus that took us from the airport to another bus station in downtown Tokyo. We arrived at that station as the 8:00 pm bus to Iijima was pulling out! Luckily there was a 9:00 bus (the last one) so we took that. It was fun watching all the people who were out shopping at night. It was crazy crowded! If I hadn't been so dead tired I would have enjoyed it more. So, at 9:00 pm our bus arrived and we loaded our things in the baggage compartment and climbed aboard. The bus was comfy and we could put our seats back and try to sleep for the 3 hour ride, but the roads were bad and it was loud and bumpy. We finally made it to Iijima, and the bus dropped us off on the side of the highway. Really. We then had to haul our five suitcases up these steep stairs, haul them over these railings, then walk down this dark street, over the highway to the parking lot on the other side of the highway where Ike's car was parked. Remember, this was now about midnight! I am going to have to figure out a way to post pictures on the blog so you can see how crazy this was.

So, turns out the trip, door to door, took us a mere 27 hours! It was great to get to Ike's apartment and take a shower and climb into (down on to) the futon. I slept well, even on the floor. :-)