Flying and Arriving in Japan

It's been a whirlwind of a week. We headed out bright and early on Saturday morning. We flew to Denver to get on the plane that took us to Tokyo. Gabe refused to sleep until it was about 2 hours before landing....that didn't work out so well. He was in his deep sleep by that time and we took him of the plane literally kicking and screaming while he was half awake and half asleep. It was miserable.

Our hotel

Then we got on the last plane flight from Tokyo to Hiroshima. The plane is small so they couldn't fit all of our luggage on the plane so they said they'd send it down the next day to our hotel. Gabe had some underwear and clothes but Archie and I didn't. We were super smelly and sticky...yuck. We crashed at the hotel and didn't have any clothes to get into so we stuck on our smelly items and went and got breakfast at.....

Yup, McDonald's. Gabe really wanted pancakes. They taste the same! Then Archie had to make it up to work on Monday and took the train. The commute is about 3-hours round trip. So it makes for some long days. But once we get settled into our apartment he'll be able to carpool and it'll cut the time in half, hopefully.

We have some friends here already that came from Utah last summer. So Amanda has been showing us around. We even bought baseball tickets for next month. Hiroshima has their own baseball team, The Carps! It'll be really fun.

We took in Costco pizza for lunch and then went back to her house and Gabe played with her girls for a bit till it was time to make it back to the hotel. We had to walk under in the tunnel. But we couldn't find our way for a bit---we got lost and had to ask someone for directions! We found it. Gabe was scared for a bit but OK after we made it to our hotel.

The next day we spent more time in the hotel and ventured out to get an ice cream cone. I really want to figure out the train system this weekend so we can go out and do more things this next week. But for now, we stick close to home so we don't get lost!

I don't have any pics yet since my cell phone doesn't work here and I won't get a phone for a couple of more weeks...so once that's done I'll be posting more pics like crazy!

Everyone is really helpful and nice. Most of their menus have pictures so usually I can just point at it.

Today, in Japan since it's 15 hours ahead of Utah, is my birthday. Pretty uneventful it will be this year at least the actual day. But I'm looking forward to getting settled and celebrating soon, out on the town! Happy birthday to me :)