Safe in the Air, Safe in Japan

We made it!

From Sunday to Monday we spent fourteen hours in the air during which we, as a family, consumed four feature-length films, six children's stories, ten meals, three hours of Leapster2 gameplay, four hours of Japan Airlines video gameplay (mostly Calvin), an hour studying the Boeing 777 safety card (that was Nicol), three hours of Disney channel, three magazine articles, and twenty hours of sleep (not at all uniformly distributed), all interspersed with periodic treks up and down the aisles and visits to the lavatory.

Calvin in the zone

To our surprise and relief, there was no whining, crying, or complaining. We even had a few measures we didn't have to deploy, like the read-to-me books on our Nook Color, a couple card games, and a huge bag of candy. The kids were in great moods the entire flight!

Calvin began to show the signs of a weary traveler while going through customs. But having a wailing three-year-old gets you expedited service in a lot of places, and Japan is no exception. Nicol, on the other hand, is a champion traveler. She had nothing but smiles the entire trip. Her excitement is exhausting but also contagious. She's a great influence on Calvin, who is often overwhelmed by the blitz of activity around him. Nicol sees the fun in everything.

Here's a brief anecdote from the airport about Japanese efficiency: A mere thirty seconds after walking through customs with what we thought was all our luggage, the airport paging system announced that they were looking for me. My parents, waiting for us in the lobby, heard the announcement before we got to them. It turns out I had left one piece of luggage on the carousel. An airport official whisked me back to the other side of the customs gate so I could retrieve it. I couldn't help but think that if I'd been so absent-minded at JFK, one of two scenarios would play out: the first is that I would get my luggage a week later, after it had been thoroughly inspected and run through various bomb/drug/cigar-sniffing machines. The second is that I'd be arrested. I certainly could not imagine a U.S. airport notifying me of forgotten luggage before I'd even left the airport.

Robin on the balcony of my parents' house

A minivan was our ride home, and while the kids were excited to play with their grandparents at their house in Ichihara, we all crashed by 8p local time. It turns out the typical pattern for travelers from the U.S. to Japan is to wake up at three o'clock in the morning after their first night here. Robin and I tapped our deepest desires for sleep to break this pattern, but Calvin and Nicol were not so strong. They were up and ready to go very early, and we finally released them from their room when we heard my parents stirring a little after five o'clock. We stayed in bed.

For our first excursion into the local neighborhood later that morning, we strolled up the bike/jogging path just outside my parents' house, passing a row of cherry blossom trees that are expected to bloom any day now. Some isolated trees are already blooming.

Calvin on the walking path across the street

A row of cherry blossom trees

Nicol and Calvin in front of a cherry blossom tree already in bloom

What I call the rocket slide

We continued on to a nearby playground where our children joined other kids from my parents' missionary team. It was a beautiful, cloudless day, the temperatures a warm sixty degrees. The park was full of children climbing on an assortment of playground sets. Calvin and Nicol took over this rocket slide, Nicol declaring that she was going to go down it a hundred times, and Calvin experimenting with different sliding techniques with the aim of achieving maximum speed. They played their hearts out until lunchtime, after which Calvin went to bed for a nap and Nicol watched a movie. After her movie, Nicol also put herself to bed for a little rest.

They both awoke from their naps at five o'clock the next morning.