We made it to Japan!

so at 6:20 am Japan time I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed even to my surprise. Oh the joy of better living through pharmeceuticals well actually it was herbs but yeah. I figured it was time to get up as I had popped the melatonin and something else I cannot pronounce around 10pm and was out in minutes. So now that I have slept let me tell you about the ordeal that kept me up for the 45 hours prior.

So I wake up Weds morning at 8am. Do the thing get on the plane in the afternoon and get to Seattle, that is where the fun begins. We were loaded with stuff so we hae the lil cart thingy, the crates dont fit so we cram Elsa in with Gaven and stack them. Not 5 minutes later Elas's crate falls and cracks, a good crack too, a no way in hell my baby is flying to Japan in this crate crack and it is 8pm and we are still at the airport. The directions I had to the station for the shuttle to the hotel were wrong so we went up 2 floors, across a bridge and back down 2 floors when we could have just crossed the street. Oh yeah and ELsa is pissed at us the whole time and Gaven was just dazed.

Got the shuttle and head to the hotel. They now want to charge us more for the dogs and act like they are doing us a favor because they dont take dogs over 20 lbs, that girl got the riot act and yeah I paid the price I was told whn I called to confirm. It is 8:45pm, the pet stores close in 15 minutes I was not having any of that from er AND I hate to fly, oh yeah and I was damn hungry. So she draws me a map to the 2 big pet stores and Target. I tell hubbs to feed and water and hang out and I will get the crate. Go back and have them call me a cab. The directions were wrong (OF COURSE!!!) thankfully the cabbie, while not knowing where it was thought the directions were wrong and headed down a different, similiarly named street, on the way to where we thought we should go. I spotted PEtsmart, he waited and I got the crate. Get it back to the hotel all on only $20 cab fare with tip, go to put it together AND THERE ARE NO BOLTS IN THE PACKAGE!!!!! Thankfully we had a crate with bolts to take apart. We go to the hotel restraut get dinner to go and head back to the room, it is now after 10. We decide to be up at 2:30am, to guarantee we are at the AMC desk at 4am, ummmm yay?

Well needless to say my insomniac self could not sleep, hubbs had wanted to stay awake but that did not last, I may have dozed over the last 2 hours before the alarm went off. So off we go, no wait for the shuttle and he wisks us off. While unloading the shuttle (oh yeah we have 1 big upright suitcase, a seabag, a good sized duffle, a small duffle, laptop case, backpack,2 dogs, carryon suitcase of paperwork and a partridge in a pear tree, so yeah 7 bags and 2 dogs) I go to get carts and see a skycap he looks at me and goes"AMC?" I said yes and he loaded us up and got us where we needed to be. Which is good because we would have never found the place. So we get through the massive line (we were last at 4am) and get setup, the girl didnt tag the dogs and didnt know what to do with them other than demand $206 CASH to fly them. Thankfully hubbs knows his ATM pin, I couldnt use mine in GA so I have no idea. There were no other dogs around and they said to have them back by 6:30 so I ignored the fact that there were no tags. We took them out, Elsa would not potty to save her life and had not since San Diego. Gaven on the other hand is all about claiming and roc, tree and bush he sees. At about 6am we head up and there are more dogs AND they have tags, so I told a different worker, and she got them tagged. We left them at 6:30am as we were hearing we were one hour delayed. There were 14 animals on the flight, they do this every week so I took a leap of faith since they do not inform us when they are on the plane. The same woman who tagged them guaranteed me that she insures they all stay together and all get on the plane and she was very nice about it and not cocky like I am sure my neurotic questions could have warranted a cocky answer. SO I went with that. When we got to the terminal it was pretty full, more floor space was taken than seats and EVERYONE was asleep, so we plopped down and hubbs conked out and I crochetted until it was a decent hour and I started texting some people. Talked to my friend Amanda for awhile and then WE WERE DELAYED FURTHER! So now our 9:40am flight that we were told to be there at 4am for will not be in until closer to noon and hopefully gone by 1300. ummm yay? Oh yeah and kids are arriving so it is getting noisy which is undersandable but so are inconsiderate people who did not notice the entire gate full of sleeping people so it got loud. They did give us food vouchers, but when Burger King is the only place around they will run out of food, at least they ran out of breakfast, thankfully I wanted lunch.

11am a flight crew shows up, but we had not seen a plane we are all hoping they just know something we don't. Then the plane arrived at some point and no one deplanes, we are debating if they are empty and were just stuck in Dallas due to weather, then we see 3 pilot types leave and hope that is the case. People start lining up, we start to laugh, what is the point. So at some point they start boarding so away we go, good news, we got the exit row and it is only 2 seats across. Bad news no seats in front of us and no room in overhead bins. We stow te entertainment bags and check the ever precious paperwork, never leave our site bag, then AFTER it is gone they tell us it will be unloaded with the normal baggage. Well fuck! but it is too late now. While we had leg room and could stand up without hitting our heads we did not have working overhead lights and the headphone jacks were hella staticy, unbearble staticy. I had my new Ipod and hubbs had his gameboy so away we went.

The flight was smooth and uneventful. Hot towels, 2 hot meals, the first of which was VERY good at least mine was and hubbs ate his so it must have been better than SOS. The movies were ok, and the one I wanted to watch (Evan Almighty) was bearbable even with the static and the crappy projection. Why is it I always sit where the projector is crap, it was out of focus but I could see the one in the next section up. I occupied myself with dozing while listening to The Golden Compass on the IPOD as I was conserving the battery for movies when I REALLY needed them later, could not read because we had no light. I got maybe 30 min sleep. The lady next to me was sleeping like a champ almost the whole way.

Now the fun begins. Getting off the plane they do it based on pets/family/rank and final destinations. So once our group came up we were already gathered so we got off quick. Then we hear it, "have your travel orders ready". Thankfully this is not common but not uncommon either so they kept my passport and our IDs to find the bag. No bag. I see a lady who works there looking at tags, I pull ours out and look at the bag next to me "SHIT!!!! it has our number and it is not our bag" When the guy gave us the tag, he gave us one and then said oh wait, Yokota and switched it, too bad he had tagged them wrong. I tell the employee she tells the Air Force guy,I tell him how important the bag is, he mutters something about :Seattle strikes again and that would be what the lose" and tells me to hang tight. So we wait and wait and of course besides the only bag we care about and the fact that we have not seen the dogs, I have not seen another bag yet. Yay I see one, and it is destroyed, can this get any better? SO slowly and quite far apart I gather 2 of our 4 checked bags. AF guy comes back and asks about the carryon and I tell him no dice, tell him what the guy who took it did with the ticket swap and the other bag going to Okinawa, describe it and show him a similar one, yes everyone there had one like it. So he heads off. While he is gone, the vet explains quarantine to me (12 hours) WOOHOO!!! And I see another bag. Then AF guy arrives with my bag, I shout "hallelujah!" thank him and rush off to get hubbs who is trying to describe our transpo and paperwork issue with someone, the guy with our IDs comes running through yelling our name, I catch him hand him the orders, grab hubbs so he can straighten that out and go talk to transpo guy. Who gets an oh shit look because he did not know of an animal transport, even though we had a reservation. HE starts making calls, hubbs comes back so I go back to the dogs, yeah they arrived at some point before I got the magic suitcase. Hubbs finds the final bag and tells me the van is here YAY!!!! We load up and off we go for the 2 hour drive toYOkosuka with our barely English speaking driver but we are together and intact.

BUT WAIT THERES MORE!!!

SO driving from Yokota to YOkosuka was cool. We had go through Tokyo. First thing, mind you I was pushing 48 hours and pretty much no sleep at this point, when the van driver hopped in on the right side I freaked a little. Then I remembered "oh wait that is where the steering wheel is" and then driving on the left was a trip. The signs were confusing, not jst because I could not read them but because they were very different, they had maps on them with roads going every which way. We were in it for a couple of hours and, there was too much going on and I am even more committed to not driving. The architecture was beautiful. There were alot of ferris wheels and to see so many Christmas lights was trippy. It was night time so we did get to see the city with the lights on, it was beautiful. I cannot even describe it, I have never seen anything like it and sometimes we were stories above the street with highways crisscrossing every which way. There were alot of ferris wheels all lit up in a very seizure inducing way.

Ok so we get to the base, I cannot find my ID. The gate guard was laughing at me, in a friendly way, I am sure he knew we were fresh meat and I had to have it to get off the plane. The guy at the airport had put it in my passport so I had not seen it and did not remember giving it to him. Hubbs told me and pulled it out and the guard smiled, and waved us through. Get to the kennel it is 9pm and of course it is closed. Go to the Lodge, they call security and they basically say we are SOL but will call the ship to get an answer. Well long, blurry story short, no answer hubbs' Chief shows up, takes the dogs and hubbs. I go to sleep. He got the dogs settled at his house in their crates and the hubbs checked in at the ship. The Kennel opens in an hour so here we go again, they better have our reservation.

That is all for now

jete ne!