And we're off!!!

Whoever said "he who would travel happily must travel light" clearly didn't have a 3-year old with them! We pretty much filled a Honda Pilot with our 3 giant duffle bags, 2 suitcases, and assorted carry on items. Andy and I each were carrying what felt like a week's worth of snacks and enough electronics to open a small store! Whatever it was, it was not packing light. In spite of all the laptops, I-pads, DVD player, kids books, puzzles, Thomas trains & track, yarn for 4 sweaters, etc., we actually did pack light with our clothes. I'm hoping that I do not end up regretting how frugal I was with only 5 pairs of pants/capris/jeans and 2 skirts to last the entire semester. I'm not exactly shaped for "Japanese sizing", so buying new clothes in Morioka isn't a realistic option. Catie and Andy should be fine, so we all packed a minimum of clothes.  

The flight was as grueling as any 13 hour flight would be, but was lightened by some spectacular views of Alaska. Flying over Glacier Bay and the Chugach mountains was amazing- I've never seen calving glaciers from a plane before. It was so cool being able to watch one glacier after another pass beneath us and have Catie merrily point out icebergs. She, being 3, was convinced that seeing icebergs meant she was seeing penguins and nothing I said was going to change her opinion. According to her, we saw a lot of penguins from the plane. As we flew along the coast, we were rewarded with amazing views of the mountains and glacial rivers pouring big plumes of glacial milk out through textbook deltas into the ocean. We even flew by Denali! We were in the clouds over the Canadian Rockies and the Aleutians, but the whole Alaska portion of the flight was just awesome!

Denali from the plane (I was so excited over Glacier Bay, I forgot to take a picture)

It helped that Catie is pretty much a rockstar traveller. She spent the flight snacking, playing with sticker books, watching movies, or napping. When we arrived, she asked us "are we in Japan now?" with a voice full of excitement and awe. We, and pretty much everyone else on the plane, were bleary eyed, dehydrated and exhausted, and there was Catie, perky as ever and thrilled to be one step further on our adventure. Everyone around us just smiled. She then proceeded to skip and dance all the way to Customs.

Our flight was slightly delayed leaving Chicago, which meant that we arrived along with 2 other international flights. Immigration was a zoo! Just as I was about to step into the very long line, a customs official said "no, you have kid, please use priority lane". We went from having an hour or more long wait to being 2nd in line! Gotta love Japan! It was also pretty cool to receive our Gajin cards right in immigration. It used to take half a day in the prefectural government office to get one, so this was a major improvement.

Catie with the brand new and super fast E6 Shinkansen

Narita was booked full being the week before Obon and right in the midst of summer vacation, so we shipped the bulk of our luggage to the apartment and then headed into Tokyo for the night. We thought this meant we'd be able to catch an earlier train up to Morioka, but somehow there was a train blackout that caused massive delays on all the Shinkansen (bullet trains) arriving into Tokyo. Tokyo Eki was beyond crazy! Even on a quiet day it's always a busy place with steady streams of people coursing through the station, but we've never seen so many people simply waiting. Every support post, every stair, and every empty space was full of people sitting or standing around. The shear amount of "confusion and delay" was a little scary, but we made it through and Catie got to ride on her first bullet train (an express even faster than Gordon's!!!).

We arrived in Morioka around 3 PM and Yuki brought us to the prefectural office to register and get our national health insurance cards and then to the E-house apartment. More on that later!