Japan 2013 Trip Report: 1/31/13 Travel Day!

We made it to Asakusa last night after a LOOOOOONNNGGGG travel day.  Our day began with some last minute errands in the morning before heading to the Hilo Airport.  Before we left, Paul took a picture of our doggie... Kiki looked so sad when she realized we were leaving!  Bye Kiki!  Be good for Grandma!

Here we are waiting at the Hilo Airport.  Can you see Akemi photo-bombing us?

Hooray!  We finally make it on the plane to Honolulu....  Can you see how excited we are?

After arriving in Honolulu, we ate and then headed for the Premier Club Lounge... Thank you Grandma Helen!  Unfortunately, Akemi has a lot of homework to do, so we made her do some on our layover.  She kept saying, "I have to keep pinching myself to make sure I'm not dreaming!"  So cute yah?

I guess my husband's photo skills are still alive and well.. I like this photo of his passport and boarding pass.  I think I need to snake it for my scrapbook...

Before heading to the plane, we decided to stop off and get some Pinkberry!  Yum!  Paul and I shared a coconut with the melted chocolate crunch balls and fresh bananas on it.  Hey.. where did it all go? :)

I guess that was the "after" photo.  Here's one of the before... Akemi had chocolate yogurt with that melted chocolate crunch, blueberries, brownie bites, and strawberries,  I gave Paul a $20 and he gave me back $4.  What???  I guess buying two of these cost more than 2 plate lunches....

See the melty goodness on the top?  I guess that was worth an extra $1.40.  When I went back to look at my old Pinkberry post, it said that I only paid $1 more.  Talk about inflation!

I guess Paul was happy to see our plane waiting for us...  Hello Plane!

Let's get this show on the road!!!  Here's a view from my seat....

And me and Akemi happy to be airborne...

They fed us pretty quickly after we took off.  When they first passed around the card with the drink and food info, we were a little worried as the meal was listed as pork and peas.  I was concerned that Akemi would not eat anything if that was the meal.  I thought that was a weird choice considering we were flying to Japan and not the Philippines.  Luckily, they served us grilled chicken with rice and edamame, caesar salad and what I think was a cheesecake.  I thought everything was ok, but Akemi was happy. I guess she was also worried it would be pork and peas!

See how relieved she looks?

And about 2 hours before we landed, we got a snack... It's so cute wrapped up in the furoshiki!  I was dehydrated, so I asked for 2 drinks.  Inside our snack box was a chicken sandwich (literally a slice of chicken with mayo- kinda like a chicken salad sandwhich?), Hawaiian Host chocolate and macadamia cookies.  Akemi didn't eat her's so Paul packed it and ate it when we got to the hotel.

Akemi had a hard time sleeping on the plane, but did manage to get a few hours in.  By the time we got off the plane she was exhausted but hung in there... we still had to go through immigration, customs, get on the monorail and then the subway!  Apparently they took this photo while I used the bathroom in the airport.

We finally made it!  Here we are on Akemi's first monorail and subway ride.  I think Paul suffered the most as Akemi had a hard time handling her suitcase.  He ended up carrying both his and her suitcase down several flights of stairs and all throughout the subway system.  Thank goodness I convinced him that we should look for an elevator to get up to street level once we hit our stop.  Success!  We found it!  Thank god cause I sure didn't want to carry my suitcase up all those stairs!  I had visions from last time and I was gonna do my best to not have to do that again!

 Paul said he felt like we were home after we got onto the main street leading to our hotel.  I was happy to see the Lawson store right next to the station and pleasantly surprised to see a 7-11 literally downstairs from our hotel!  After we got to our room we discovered our hotel had some changes too... We now have wireless in the room!  Yay!  Last time it was a wired connection, so now all of our gadgets can work.  Woo hoo! AND they no longer have regular keys.  They now have the card keys that most hotels had.  Thank goodness. I used to stress out about forgetting the key.  Yay!  So happy to be back.

Since we are a bit messed up, we woke up just before 5am Tokyo time.  Akemi said she'd been up for awhile, so I made her do some homework.  What a junk mom yah?  I think she had cabin fever, so after she finished one assignment she asked Paul if she could go walking with him.  Now I'm just waiting for them to come back so we can go have their awesome free breakfast!!

I think we are heading to Harajuku and (crossing my fingers) Character Street today.  Paul has a taiko lesson so he's going to drop us off at Harajuku while I take Akemi to Kiddyland, Oriental Bazaar, and then we'll meet him back at the 100 yen shop.