Skimashita! (sorta)

Well, we have touched down in Tokyo Narita and are awaiting our connection to Sapporo.  Our journey seemed off to an auspicious beginning, as the desk clerk at reservations not only put us in a bulkhead exit row, but also very kindly decided to "ignore" the fact that my suitcase was no less than TEN POUNDS over the limit and not charge me.  We really hope we have not used up our entire store of good luck points for this voyage already.

Our flight on the (in)famous Dreamliner began with pilot apologizing for the Dreamliner's somewhat tarnished reputation, and assuring us that this plane is every bit airworthy and reliable.  I feel safe in wagering that this is only something one would hear on Japanese-owned 787s....

I have to say, for a flying glitch factory, it's at least an aesthetically pleasing one. Feels like being aboard the the Enterprise-D - all smooth curves, rounded gunmetal gray corridors - infrared lighting in the bathrooms (sensor on-off for toilet and sink), polarized window. 

How else do you know you're on a Japanese plane?  Every few hours the lights would come on anda a stone-faced woman on a videoscreen would instruct you to engage in calisthenics, all while cautioning you not to disturb those near you,

My favorite, though, had to be the animated safety video, which showed a plane making an emergency landing and all the passengers running from it en masse, practically screaming "gozilla! godzilla!"

Here we are enjoying steaming, spicy bowls of hot ramen noodles.  Having flown about 13 hours here, we now have decided our trip is complete, and will return home promptly.

(heh)

Behold - the mighty soy-sauce Dalek!  Fear its wrath!  "Saturate!  Sat-u-rate!"

We toyed extremely briefly with the idea of Dalek-napping him and taking pictures all over Japan (soysauce Dalek in front of Buddha statues, soysauce Dalek winning a Sumo match, soysauce Dalek having lunch with the Prime Minister), and were this any other country than Japan, we just might have...but you just can't do dick moves like that in Japan.  It would just be wrong.  So we'll have to photoshop him into various scenes.  

Which we won't have the energy to do.

We used it all up getting sent from floor to floor trying to find the domestic departures area, which four different people told us four different locations for, but we're here now.

So here we are, enjoying our comfortable wireless access....in a strange post-apocalyptic Narita seems practically deserted....now they're calling us to board, so hopefully the next transmission you receive will be from our hotel, and not from some gulag somewhere (come on, even gulags these days have free wireless, right?  Right?)

- D