Somewhere over the Pacific

The following was written 6-27, on the flight from Seattle to Tokyo

4:31PM PDTI think it’s just setting in how long this flight is. 19 hours, they say. We’ve only been airborne for 2.5. Think of what one could do in 19 hours. A hell of a lot more than sit in a plane and watch Firewall multiple times (which was a horrible movie, by the way). But I suppose it’s better than taking a boat…

I’m one of the few white people on here. Seriously, there’s like 10 of us. It’s kinda funny to watch the flight attendants – they have to decide whether they should speak Japanese or English whenever they want to talk to someone. So far its been all English with me. Which is good, as my Nihongo is a bit rusty.

I wonder how the Tokyo airport will be. Cooped up for 3 hours…

I hope people there will take USD so I can get decent food.

They served us lunch here, which was chicken worse than the teriyaki on Amtrak. But it was a large lunch, at least.

By the way, what’s up with Japanese guys and alcohol? All three Japanese business men in my row have ordered beer and wine. Is that a cultural thing, or did I just luck out? I’m indulging myself in water while I still know it’s clean.

I hope my backpack makes it. That’s really gonna suck if I loose that. There isn’t much money or any papers in it, just stuff.

I wonder if I’ll sleep? I usually don’t sleep in cars. It’s not even 5PM here and they turned the lights down and closed the shutters already.

7:19PM Is it bad when they ask if there’s a doctor or nurse aboard?

10:45PM I’m confused. Judging by the map, we couldn’t be more than an hour or two from Tokyo. Yet we’ve only been airborne for 8 hours and 45 minutes. I swear somebody told me this was supposed to be a 19 hour flight.

The only possible explanation is that we somehow jumped through a worm hole and apes now rule the Earth.

You’d think it would be difficult to screw up beef and noodles. At least I would. You got your beef, got your noodles, and bam! Beef n’ noodles. Oh well. It looked better than the pasta.

What’s this Japanese Tea I keep being offered? I highly doubt that if if I asked for Japanese Tea in Japan that anyone would know what I was talking about. And if it isn’t some American-ized title for a certain tea, it needs a better name.