Day 1 - Travel
April 14/15 - North America
Three AM is really early
Not so fun fact. But besides the “what did I forget? ” “Did you grab this? Did you grab that?” The early morning drive was pretty uneventful….well, until we ran into an unexpected snowstorm. Clear skies until we got to Denver and suddenly…? White out conditions. Thankfully, there was nobody else on the roads that hour. After arriving at the parking area, we jumped on the shuttle. The shuttle driver gave the usual spiel about “don’t forget things” and I do the obligatory “look through your stuff.”
I did forget something. A lot of somethings.
My keys. My wallet. My driver’s license. My credit cards. And my international debit card. All of which are very important for this trip. Sitting on the seat of my car. The driver was chill with turning around, though. So after stuff was in hand, we made it to the airport. Security was uneventful (yay) and then we went and had breakfast in the Capital One lounge.
Vancouver airport was super unique
After the first short flight, out layover through Vancouver welcomed us with set installations and things to see. We had lunch in one of the lounges (mmm noodle bar) and then we headed for the long flight to Tokyo. We got to the gate and after seeing the line was infinitely long, we called home and lazed around for a bit. When the line had disappeared we jumped on and made our way to our seats when Nate realized that
He forgot the lightsaber blades
at the lounge. He took off running and was GONE.
The flight attendant was nice enough albeit confused. How many minutes before doors close? Um…five? Yikes. Oh, and did I mention Nate is awful with directions? Like….awful awful? I paced the galley while trying to guide him over the phone as he ran through the airport. The lounge is near Gate 53. No, I said 53! There’s a counter with a nice lady at it….no, that’s a bar. SkyLounge, that’s the one.”
Also, thankfully the lounge knew exactly what he was talking about when he breathlessly tried to describe the blade bag and they were able to give it to him right away.
The airplane doors closed
10 hours later and we made it! We touched down a little bumpy but we were here! In Japan! Customs was long and painful as you would imagine, but it was fun to see all of the people wearing the Star wars stuff, knowing that we soon would meet again either in cosplay or adorned in Star wars regalia for the celebration. After a lengthy immigration, we finish and is they picked up our luggage and thankfully customs and wasn’t too bad. However, the line for the Suica cards (the cards that you use for buses, trains, vending machines and other things around Japan) was LONG. Like half an hour if not more long. Julie and Nate went to get Starbucks well I and direct the line. Finally, we got through. We went up to go get our bus… But unfortunately
The bus to our hotel sold out
And the next one would arrive for like an hour. And it dropped off like a quarter of a mile from our hotel… And we had a lot of empty luggage. Oh well. We booked it and found a quiet corner to nest.The boys headed off to get sushi. Confirmed from Elijah, Japan’s quick service sushi is apparently way better than Americas (shocker)
The evening was nice. And really, even with all our luggage, the walk wasn’t bad. We met a gal from Australia, also ready for convention, and Juli made a friend on the bus.
Finally, we made it!
Once it to was time to line up, we overheard the couple in front of us talking about swag. We have swag too! So we did our first obligatory swag swap of convention!
The evening was nice. And really, even with all our luggage, the walk wasn’t bad.
Dropping off our luggage, we took a smooth elevator up to the 50th floor to ring in our arrival in Japan. With a view that overlooked the entire city and a baseball game below, it was a great way to end the day.
