I'm a pretty lazy person. I've had 2 months since I purchased airline tickets for Japan, but I still waited until the night before to do everything. On Wednesday Night, I bought better insoles for my shoes, packed clothing, packed other stuff, paid rent, processed all my old photos still on my camera, watched Rescue Me. I could have easily done this stuff on Tuesday, but decided to wait for I don't know why.
As such I got to bed around Midnight. I wanted to get a good night's rest before my 8am flight, but It was not in the cards. I had to wake up around 5:15am and get outside to catch a bus at 5:52 to head to the airport. A transfer here, a transfer there, and I was at the airport. A timely arrival didn't really matter though, since Chicago thunderstorms delayed my flight out of Madison about 2 hours.
Eventually, I made it to Chicago with well enough time to catch my Narita flight. So much time, in fact, that I walked around the airport.
O'hare has some very pretty areas that I hadn't seen before. Usually what I see of O'hare is construction, or concrete walls. The International flight areas is really pretty. The corridor connecting Terminals B and C is underground and has rainbow lights that flicker along to classical music.
Going back and forth along the conveyer belts took up enough of my free time. I boarded the plane, sat in my seat, and off we went to Narita. I choose the very last window seat on the left side of the plane: 61B. Which was great in theory. There was no one behind me to kick my seat! However, directly behind me was a semi-open area for people to stand and stretch. So I only slept a couple times, and 20 minutes at time for that matter.
The pilot was pretty efficient. We got to Narita 20 minutes ahead of schedule! However, that didn't make any difference.
The Japanese Health Administration was set into Panic mode thanks to the Swine Flu and EVERY incoming human to Japan had to be "Quarantined". We sat on the plane for an additional 2 hours after our 12 hour flight for Health officials to board the plane and have us take an additional customs survey about our health.
One-by-one passenger-by-passenger they would receive our survey process it and then decide that we're OK.
Surprisingly, the people on the plane were understanding, despite the ridiculousness. Everyone sat in their seat and waited. I was probably the only one on the plane that didn't have a connecting flight, too. We arrived at Narita around 2:20pm and I finally got off the plane around 4:15pm. It's been about 21 hours since I've got any actual sleep.
The Narita Express took me directly to Shibuya where I plan on staying for my whole trip. The second that I got off the train I started walking in the direction I thought was correct but was not. I joked that I was totally get lost walking around Tokyo, but I didn't think I would get lost so early in my Journey. Once I found a city map, I was turned toward the right direction.
The Hotel I planned on staying at was actually a Love Hotel. I guess that's what I get for last minute research. There was an actual hotel right around the corner though. So I checked in, got in my room and finally went to sleep around 7:30pm (24 hours since I woke up at 5:15am in Madison).