We had to deliver Mitsy to the Cat House Hotel on Sunday as Monday is a holiday. Bob got a few bruises while putting her in her carrier. She struggled wildly but never attacked him. Unfortunately, the flailing carrier door whacked him in several places.
Monday we got everything packed, and got up at 4:30 on Tuesday morning. Our taxi was right on time and so was the 5:50 Santa Barbara Air Bus to LAX. The Brucatos would have taken the 4 AM bus and had plenty of time to relax, but we gambled on the 5:50 bus and, of course, hit terrible traffic at the 101/405 interchange. However, we miraculously arrived at the airport with two hours to spare, whipped through check-in and security and then had the long slog from Terminal 4 over to the Tom Bradley. After enjoying cappuccinos we arrived at our gate and walked right onto our American Airlines 787. A very nice plane and our seats in Premium Economy were roomy and comfortable.
We took off at 10:30 and were immediately served lunch with GnTs and Bloody Marys; the food was only OK, but as we hadn’t eaten since last night, it tasted pretty good. Bob’s theory was that we should stay up for the eleven hours of the flight, arriving in Tokyo mid-afternoon, check in to our hotel and collapse in the evening - that would get us over jet lag…we’ll see!
The flight was all in daylight, but, of course, they wanted us to sleep and the new windows on the 787 can be darkened by the flight staff! You can adjust it a bit, but it’s too dark for seeing much of anything. Bob was not impressed! We got dinner just before we landed, flying over farm lands, golf courses, villages, and wide expanses of water.
Haneda airport is quite impressive and huge: 3 very large terminals, but with good people moving skills. We entered Immigration and found ourselves in a very large room crammed full of people. We managed to find the end of the line and started moving, eventually entering long roped-off walkways. We walked back and forth the entire length of the room 14 times before we arrived at an immigration officer. Bob had downloaded QR codes for us that greatly sped up our entry. We grabbed our waiting bags and we were out without incident. Immediately found an ATM which shot out pristine 10,000 Yen notes (~$70), walked to the end of a long walkway and into the Villa Fontaine Hotel where we’re staying the night.
We got a small, but well-designed room overlooking the Tema River. And in the bathroom we found our first Japanese Toilet!! Wow! It does everything but press your clothes: two different types of sprays, adjustable spray strength, and adjustable toilet seat temperature. We haven’t figured all this out yet!
We went back down to the airport connecting walkway (full of shops and restaurants) for a bite to eat and found a cute cafe that boasted having an English menu which we never saw, but with the help of photos we ordered a few plates of which the delicious grilled sable fish was the best, followed by a dessert of sweet red bean paste with sweet, but very rubbery, white dumplings on top! It was quite like the diner in “Midnight Diner”, a wonderful Netflix series, if you haven’t seen it.
Back to our room for bed and prep for our flight to Hokkaido and meeting our group tomorrow.
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