The Trip Over...

Well, after having a crazy week (Mike lost his glasses and crashed his car), we’ve had a crazy flight, but we’re looking to the future!  After running our final errands and packing our last minute items, we got to the airport in style! Mike’s company hired a car service, which came to our house right on time and drove us to the airport in a black towncar…so relaxing to just sink into the backseat and let someone else worry about getting us there! The driver was really nice, too. We waited through a LONG security line after waiting in a long line to check in, and found our gate.  We also saw the Neurnbergs in line, on their way to their honeymoon in Hawaii! Always fun to see people you know! J Things were looking up, and we were very excited.

Here’s where things started to get interesting.  Shortly after this picture was taken, they announced that the plane we were supposed to take was hit by lighning on the way in, which caused them to delay the flight 2 hours.  Bummed, we headed to Chilis to have some lunch and wait it out.  We were seated at a very strange booth/table combination.  I sat on the booth side, which was so low that the table came to my collarbone.  Mike, however, was in a normal chair, which brought him to the appropriate height for the table.  I joked with the lady next to us that we should ask for booster chairs.  Picture is below. After sitting there for about an hour, the bartender announced that Josh Duhamel had just left.  Although he called him “Fergie’s Husband”….poor guy.  Apparently he had been sitting at the bar, 15 feet away from us, the whole time we were there, and I didn’t realize it was him! The bartender said that he was trying to hide who he was, and even denied being “the guy from Las Vegas” to someone.  Apparently that fan pulled up a picture of him on her phone, and said “So you’re telling me this isn’t you?”, and he finally admitted to it.  Gutsy fans in Minnesota I guess!  Here's me at the booth...

Ironically, while I was packing for the trip this week I saw him on TV, and he mentioned that he was headed back to Minot for his sister’s wedding, which is where he’s from.  I was bummed I missed my brush with fame!  We headed back to the gate only to find that our gate had changed, and that the flight was moved to 5:45.  Once we got to the gate, we saw that there was still no plane, and it was 5.  We definitely weren’t leaving at 5:45!  Around 5:30, when we still had no plane in sight, they actually announced that they still had no idea what was going on.  Finally at 6:15 they canceled the flight and said that we were rescheduled for the next morning at 9.  We all got $18 in meal vouchers, which was supposed to cover our dinner and breakfast, and a hotel voucher for the Ramada, which is the old Thunderbird hotel in the Mall of America Parking Lot.  Delta gave us all free  “SkyTeam” overnight kits, which I thought was nice, they included a fresh t-shirt, which was unexpected! Picture is below:

We crammed on the shuttle with some other stranded passengers and headed to the hotel.  After using our vouchers at the not so great restaurant at the hotel, we went to bed early since we had to get up at 6:00 the next morning to try everything again!

We arrived at the airport with no problems, and had minimal waits to check in and go through security.  We even boarded on time! Then the real fun began.  As we were all getting settled, a woman about 4 rows in front of us started screaming and crying.  She had very broken English and was saying something about how she had been forced to stand too long. She was about our age, maybe even younger, so it  seemed to be a strange complaint coming from someone who looked pretty healthy. Mike thought that she said she was pregnant.  She was wearing a very unusual outfit, so I remembered seeing her at the gate, pacing there…there were plenty of seats, so who knows what was going on with her.  The flight attendants called for a doctor, and then moved her to the back, where she continued to scream and cry in broken English.  Then the police came.  As everyone watched and some (not be because I felt bad!) took pictures of her, she was escorted off of the plane.  We then had to wait an hour and a half for them to sort through the luggage down below to find her and her travel buddy’s luggage.  We finally took off around 10:30, 90 minutes late.  The captain walked around the plane, trying to calm everyone down, which I thought was a nice gesture.

We finally made it to Tokyo around 12:30 their time.  Then, after a trip through immigration and another trip through customs, we were able to purchase our train tickets and take a seat on the train that runs from the airport to Tokyo.  It was a really nice train, with assigned seats and a food cart.  Some of the options on the food cart were...interesting:

 Then, here are our first views of Japan, from the train.  Everything was SO green and beautiful, I couldn't believe how dense some of the trees and shrubs were.

We got off the train at Shinjuku, and then took a taxi from there to (sort of) by our hotel.  We found out that none of the roads that lead to our hotel allow cars, so it was a little bit of a walk, but I think that's going to be a good thing, we heard very little traffic noises last night!
We tried (somewhat unsuccessfully) to get a meal at a restaurant, and ended up ordering a really really good salad, and a really not so good meal.  We still aren't quite sure what the meat was that we were eating, but it was so tough that it literally took 5 minutes to chew one small piece of it.  We paid and got out of there, and headed to a supermarket, where mike found some chicken wings and I found some soba noodles.  Still not great, but at least edible.  We'll see where today takes us as far as food!
It's about 6 AM here now, and Mike leaves for work in an hour.  He'll take the train (he has to transfer twice), and one of his coworkers will meet him at the station to take him the rest of the way to the factory.
I'm going to explore the neighborhood a little more, and possibly head to Shinjuku, which is a 20 minute walk from here.  More pictures to come!