Aloha and Konichiwa!

At Narita Tokyo airport after the 8-hour flight from Honolulu

We made it. We are really doing this thing.

We left our hotel in Honolulu around 6 am on Wednesday, grateful to be leaving before storms Iselle and Julio were predicted to arrive in Hawaii. We had plenty of time at the airport before the flight, so the girls made good use of some spending money to enjoy a massage. The giggles were worth well more than the $ 1 they spent.

The Honolulu airport has many portions that are open air. It is a pretty nice place to have to hang out for a few hours.

We checked out our plane - yes, girls, there is an upstairs; no, girls, we will not be sitting up there - and charged our electronics for a few final minutes before settling in for our 8 hour flight to Tokyo.  

The girls were great.  To be honest, they were far better on the 8-hour flight than they are on a 2-hour car trip.  Zoe slept for a couple hours right from take-off, and Maddox snoozed for a few minutes as well.  Then, Maddox enjoyed listening to the radio channels, especially once she found the pop station that played "All of Me" every 3rd song or so.  Somewhere over the Pacific, we crossed the dateline, it was suddenly Thursday, and I got two new wrinkles.  I expect them to disappear when we fly from Tokyo to Seattle in December. 

Once at the Tokyo airport, we were able to go through customs without too much trouble.  We did have to get a residence card since we are here for longer than a typical tourist, but all of that went off without a hitch, even with Zoe giving the stink-eye to the gentleman in charge of our paperwork.  I repeated "arigato gozaimasu" as many times as possible since it was the only phrase I could comfortably say, and hoped my excessive gratitude would be enough.

John took the girls to the currency exchange so they could exchange their spending money.  Maddox is as loaded as a 7-year-old should ever be because she got some early birthday cash.  

The exchange rate is roughly 100 yen to 1 U.S. dollar, but seven thousand of anything looks pretty cool.  The exchange rate also gives Maddox a great opportunity to practice some basic division.  They also use the 24-hour clock here (like the military) which is another good opportunity for basic math all day long.  Next week? Mastering the kilometers to miles conversion. This is what homeschooling looks like for now!

We also found a McDonald's at the airport.  There will be time for adventurous eating, but not when two kids just need some calories to make it through the long day. We were a bit flustered, and had a hard time finding a place to sit, so we had taken our food and gone around the corner, outside the restaurant, to eat on a bench.  We noticed that we only had one Happy Meal, but chalked it up to something lost in translation.  A few minutes later, one of the women from McDonald's came and found us with the other Happy Meal.  We love helpful people (who doesn't?) and we are starting to see this as the cultural norm here.  It's refreshing.

Our flight to Okinawa was uneventful, despite some concern about a typhoon earlier in the week.  We made it to a lovely hotel near the airport, and collapsed in bed.  We had been up for about 22 hours, a feat I am not sure I accomplished even in college.  Tune in next time to see where we are living, and what our first few days on this island have been like. (Spoiler alert: it's all good.) 

Oyasuminasai! Good night! (We are 13 hours ahead of those of you on the East Coast. We are 16 hours ahead of those of you on the West Coast.  One train leaves the station at 5 p.m. and continues at a constant speed for 3 hours.  A boat chugs ENE at 20 knots. How many apples does Sally have?)

At baggage claim in Okinawa, finally and officially tuckered out.