Just to clear a few things up

Sorry sorry! I know I'm horrible about updating but after I got Brandi's comment I felt the need to tell you all about the return trip of my America Christmas Adventure. Because it was infinately better than the way TO the US.

First off I had to fly out of Chicago and BACK to Georgia, then on to Tokyo. Second my flight was at 6:05 in the morning. This meant we needed to leave the house at like 12 to get there by 3:00 am. It was awful, the worst car ride ever. We drove my sister's old SUV a chevy blazer & the heater is stuck on 'defrost' so it wouldn't change to vent or anything. I spent the entire ride there freezing to death. I seriously was so cold it was ridiculous. There was also like this huge snowstorm that night so of course here we are driving right through it. We saw not one but two semis that had slid off the rode into the median, one had flipped onto it's side which was not cool. I thought WE were going to go off the road but God was looking out for us because we made it to Chicago ok with just a few slides.

When we got my boarding pass (after arriving and realizing that chicago is like an hour behind us do to time zone changes and it was 4:00 am not 5:00) I was excited to find out that I had an aisle seat for the trip from Atlanta to Tokyo. I slept the whole way because I was so tired. Then I had to run & get on the shuttle/tram/thingy to take me to the international gate. But the cool thing was that I didn't have to recheck my baggage! Thank you God! Then I called and left a message on my parent's machine. However because I only had 45 min. between flights and because I stopped to call my parents on the way to the gate I missed the original boarding call.

This was awesome & fortunate! I got up there, gave the lady my ticket, she rang me in & just as I was about halfway down the ramp she comes running after me & tells me to wait! wait! Then she runs back out to the gate counter, so I follow her thinking 'oh crap am I getting a random security check or something?' but no my friends no for she came back to me and told me the most AWESOME thing ever: I had been upgraded to business class . Yes that is right! Because I showed up late & the plane was booked solid I got to take an empty seat in business class while some shmuck was stuck in my economy seat. I cried for joy. Dude, the get to eat on real plates, have much better food, I had people continually asking me if I wanted a drink or a snack, the chair was big, leather, and had LOTS of footroom. I could even lay that thing down, it had a footrest & everything. And there was a nice, quiet, older japanese man sitting next to me so no screaming kids!!! I got to sleep, eat, watch movies, and the BATHROOM is even better. It's like 2x's the size of economy bathrooms & cleaner. If I could afford it I would totally fly that way from now on.

When I got back to Narita airport I got to stand in the MUCH shorter line for people with registered alien cards instead of the long, crappy, tourist line. I showed them my passport, they made me stick my fingers on a machine & look at the camera, and I was done. Took like 1 extra minute & that was a lot less than when I first came into the country & stood in the other line. Hahaha. I decided that my luggage was WAY to heavy to try & take back on the plane to Sapporo. They would totally charge me extra for it so I decided to mail it back. It was about $20 and totally worth it because I wasn't having to drag about 60 lbs. worth of crap around with me to the other airport. I just transfered a couple days worth of clothes into the duffel I had brought as a precaution & I was good to go.

The ride back to Haneda airport was kind of crowded but that was ok too. I got to talk to a very nice woman who was an accountant for the army-run school on Okinawa. She was getting transfered back to the US to... Columbus? maybe?... and was on her way back there to finish packing up all her stuff. When I got to Haneda I was again in an aisle seat AND there was nobody sitting next to me which was awesome. Haha. The only sucky part about the return trip was the train because it was so late at night they didn't have any straight connections between New Chitose airport & Otaru so I had to take a reserved car seating ( I love those things!) back to Sapporo, then I had to run out of the station, but a ticket for Otaru & run back in to hop on a local train. Which sucked because at that point I was tired, hot, and cramped. But other than that everything was cool.

So all I can say is this: If bad things happen to you, good things are sure to follow. That's karma.

So if you want to come to Japan, don't worry about it, if you have a shitty flight you'll probably have a great vacation!