Are we there yet?

We’ve been up for about 26 hours, with the exception of a couple cat naps on the plane, and we’re finally on leg four of five of our journey to Kyoto. Right now we’re riding on the Nozomi bullet train that travels between Tokyo and Kyoto and it is about 7:30 p.m. on Thursday (13 hours ahead of Cleveland).

I loved my first foray into first class for my flight from Cleveland to Houston. But, I felt like a loser when I asked for a mimosa (I thought you could get anything???) at 5:45 a.m. and the flight attendant turned me down. Apparently they don’t have sparkling wine. Pshaw!

I’ve had lots of questions about how to pass the time during a 14-hour flight, so here’s a snippet of my Tokyo flight:

Hours 1-3: read magazines, eat meal one of three, read even more magazines (ask Chuck about how many I pack for trips)
Hours 3-6: Watch Australia, bawl during four scenes and look like an idiot
Hours 7-8: Read one of Gina’s books on Kyoto
Hour 9: Eat meal #2, which reminds me of $2 Tuesday Chicken in Basket lunches in high school (w/o fries), sip a Mr. Pibb!!!
Hours 10-11: Watch Lost in Translation, feel relief that the sign in the movie for Kyoto Station is in English
Hour 12: “sleep”
Hours 13-14: reacquaint myself with my language guide, get really stir crazy

So far, we’ve navigated the trains pretty well. We took the Narita Express from the airport to Tokyo Station and it only took us three tries to find the correct seats. J (FYI, the Tokyo Narita Airport is as close to Tokyo as Toledo is to Cleveland.) From Tokyo Station, which was insanely busy since we were there during rush hour, we hopped on the Nozomi that I’m riding now, which will take us to Kyoto Station. We should be passing Mt. Fuji soon (or Fuji-san as the Japanese affectionately call it), but it will be too dark to see. Thankfully, we’ll have up-close views later on our trip.

Once we get to Kyoto Station, we’ll take a subway line a few stops, get out and look for the Louis Vuitton store since that’s the landmark our Ryokan owner gave us. To be continued…