Japan: the plane flight

[forgotten_aria]

200401150800ish EST

Forgot my watch, which is mildly annoying.

At check in, there were some people going to Vietnam with several
heavy boxes, one of which was completely covered in tape. While
waiting in line, we watched them wrap another box in packing tape,
almost an entire roll, after already being told that security would
have to open the boxes and cut through the tape. I overheard them
saying that the boxes were full of jeans. Sam was laughing at the
continual sound of the tape being wrapped around the box. It made
waiting in line a lot more entertaining to watch this interplay going
on.

200401160303 Tokyo time (all times from now on will be on Tokyo time)

AA's leg room is larger. It's almost reasonable back here in coach.
It's my first time on anything this big since Egypt in Dec '92. It's
a boeing 777 (boeing nana nana nana). They handed us a little menu
with meal choices and sushi appetizer (worry, sushi airline food) and
green tea (I'm going to love being in a tea drinking society.) It
sounds like amazing food, but it's airline food so... We're sitting
on the taxi way at JFK getting deiced. Each seat has a TV screen
including an option to see a map with position and direction of the
plan and mileage/km/kiro count down. 6736 miles. We're leaving a
little late, but note a big deal since we have to meet up with Mike
when we get there anyway. I'm sure we'll pick up some time in the
air. I can't remember if this is the fast or the slow direction. The
in flight magazine is in Spanish, the exit signs in English and
Japanese. Someone was thinking.

I got a horrible sandwich in JFK for $5.40. I'm glad I got the
cheaper one.

The seats have power underneath them. The head rest, if the safety
manual is to be believed, does this cool folding thing to give you left
to right support and cradle your head.
I'm hoping to sleep after food. It will put me almost on the right
schedule if I do. but really, who knows what schedule everyone else
will be on for the first few days.

I wish I'd worked harder on practicing more Japanese before I left.
Oh well, too late now.

My RFM sent me mail before I left congradulating me on my TRU stores
being good, which implies that the KMart was a disappointment, not
surprisingly.

Oh, on the puddle jumper to JFK I'd forgotten how pretty clouds are
from up top. Very nice.

The ride to the airport was nice and incident free. I home Camilla
got back safely.

The bathrooms in JFK are skanky!

I've not seen gas stations bathrooms as bad as those.

Next, skymall quotes and cool items, once we've taken off.

Runway! Yay!

Wow, the whole plane is flexing dramatically. This is a good thing,
but kind of unnerving never the less.

The map now has an Altitude and ground speed readout and a local map
in the cycle. 477 km/hr 1754 meters 6737 miles to Tokyo.

Silly skymall things:

Monster Basketball
"Develop basic dance skills the best way -- without distracting music."
"Fly catchers. Swatting all known flies DEAD... and it 'Burps'"
Personalized branding iron

Current eta 4:35pm

200401150502 Over James bay, 5967 miles to go, 4:29pm ETA, outside air temp -50
degrees C

Ah airline food. Beef flavored cardboard with chocolate flavored
cardboard for dessert. The saddest salad, driest roll. Surprisingly
the sushi was not completely disgusting, but by no means good but it
was better than laverde's sushi (I can't believe I ever at that
stuff.) Also the cardboard was better than my sad sad salad.

I guess I might try to sleep some, but I'm loosing interest.

2004011506143 ETA 4:24, just back over land after being over the Hudson Bay.

Managed to sleep a little less than an hour. Feel better for it
mentally, physically however, ugh, stiff. Think I'll watch old sin
city reruns or just read.

200401150945 ETA 4:27, over Alaska, 3330 miles left
I think this is my first time crossing the date line. Since my only
there time off North America was the other way, this is likely. We
should be crossing it in 1-2 hours.

200401161128 2477 miles, ETA 4:29, -51C , over the Bering sea.

So I was wrong. We turned to run parallel to the date line where i
angles around Russia, so we've been skirting along the edge of it for a
while now.

Oh, I think we just crossed it.