Newark, NJ to Narita Airport, Japan
A mixture of anxiety and excitement waves over me when I wake up at 3am ET this morning realizing that I have not yet packed for my 10 day trip - my flight is at 11am ET and I still haven't figured out how I'm going to get to the airport... originally, I was supposed to wake up early, drop off my car in Brooklyn with my sister and she would take me to her job where I'd catch the Super Shuttle to Newark... that doesn't work out since it's already 3am and the only available super shuttles were 6:30 and 6:45am, and there was no way I'd shower, pack, get to Brooklyn then Chinatown by then.... I'm thinking GREAT, now what - so, I hop up and hurriedly think up a plan - I convince my sister it makes the most sense for me to get to her house by 7am and she take me to the airport from there. Thankfully, she agrees...
So, it takes me about 2 hours total to shower, get ready and pack what I hope will be enough for the trip. I fly to Brooklyn top speed and from there my sister drives me to Newark where I arrive 3 hours before my flight - tons of time to check in, relax and make my goodbye America phone calls. I am at my gate with 2 hours to kill so I relax for a bit, make some calls, send some texts - then board the plane!
The best part of departure day is anticipating my reunion with my mother. I haven't seen her since April when she left to go to the Philippines to tend to her growing business and religious... um... pursuits? - I think that's the word I'm looking for. Well, yeah, I'm really excited about seeing her again!
Anyway... the flight is 13 hours long and I always chuckle at the way people cringe when I tell them that. Long flights don't scare me. I've done it numerous times before and it's easy for me because I can fall asleep for long periods of time, wherever, whenever - so that takes care of at least 6 hrs of the trip. Furthermore, there are always the complimentary movies, TV shows and video games available taking care of at least 3-4 more hours. The remaining 3 hours I can easily fill in with my usual daydreaming, iPod jamming and journal writing. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that a flight this long really isn't that bad. I'm almost never bored and have no trouble entertaining myself... then there's my mantra "when in doubt, SLEEP more!" =POne first, for this flight, however is the menu - never got a menu for a flight before and like I said, I've done the 13 hour flight thing quite a few times already & chopsticks came with the first meal - that was cool. They also served us a cheeseburger and haagen dazs ice cream as a late night snack so that was a pleasant thing to wake up to at (God knows what time it was).
So basically - on this flight, I'm feeling GREAT but my main concern is finding my mother. We were supposed to arrive at Narita at the same time but that's not going to happen with all the typhoon warnings in Cebu (Visayas), which is where she was originally supposed to fly to Tokyo from. She left me and my sister a text saying that she will not make it on time since all flights out of Cebu were cancelled but she would try everything in her power to make it to Tokyo - i.e. taking a 12 hr bus ride from Cebu to Manila and catching the next flight out of Manila to Tokyo. Which would be quite a crazy ride and who knows if she'd be successful????? She was cute in her email though saying "I will do everything in my power to make it to Tokyo. Only GOF (God our Father) and his elements can stop me from coming to see you" and boy do I pray that GOF and His elements don't keep me from her TOO long.... I really hope she makes it SOON.
more to come...
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