Now that this blog is up and running I want to back up and start at the beginning of our adventure .

Monday, July 14, 2014                            9am

Wow, it’s finally here.  We are at the San Diego airport waiting for the first leg of our journey to Japan and great new adventures ahead.

It’s been quite a week with the pack out on Wednesday and lots of loose ends to wrap up.  We’ve shipped nearly everything to Japan, most of it will arrive in September.  About 250 pounds we packed in an “Express” Shipment which will arrive in a month.  The express load consisted of 1 tandem, 2 road bikes, Chris’ work clothes, a pot, 2 cups, 2 forks, 2 bowls, and 2 towels.  My road bike and our 2 city bikes went on the slow boat along with the rest of our household goods.   (And, if anybody is keeping track, our Twin Schwinn beach cruiser tandem is going to Ashland, OR later.)

I am moving back to Coronado in late September to continue to oversee the caregiving of my mom so we scrounged up enough furniture for me to get by – a bed, a chair, a table, a cup, a bowl and a plate.  Then we emptied the storage unit and moved all that miscellaneous stuff into the apartment too – just so I won’t get lonely.

We’ve also had so many amazingly wonderful send off parties.  The bike club at the Yacht Club, Chris’ work folks at the old Police Headquarters in downtown San Diego,  the Thursday Night Bike Gang dinner – with chopsticks as well as dinner and lunches with so many special friends.  Thank you all.  You guys are the best and we’ll miss you all.

We left San Diego right on time at 10:53am this morning, arrived in San Francisco at 12:30pm and walked right on to our 747 for the big trip “across the pond” as my Papa would say.  We are in Row 60 – last row, a window and an aisle, just two seats – so romantic – and very spacious back here.

Sooooo, we got on the plane at 1pm, and took off at 2pm Monday afternoon.  We landed in Tokyo at 12 midnight California time or 1600 (4pm) Tuesday afternoon Japan time.  That means we were on the plane for 11 hours.  But the good news is that we did get lunch, dinner and breakfast along the way.

The sign on the seat in front of us was our first clue that we were headed for Japan.  Our second clue was that all the flight announcements on board were in Japanese and then an abbreviated version in English.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

When we arrived in Tokyo we had an hour and a half to go through declarations and customs and catch another flight to Hiroshima.  The Tokyo airport was very big and clean and not very crowded.  This process went very smoothly thanks to the helpful Japanese staff along the way and the signage and by just following the other passengers.  Our last flight got us to Hiroshima at 1900 and by the time we got our luggage it was around 2000.

Lucky for us, Nikki and Cody, two people from Chris’ staff met us at the airport and drove us down to Iwakuni about 95km (60miles) south.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Day 1 in Japan.  We had a great night’s sleep in our TLF (Temporary Lodge Facility) on MCAS (Marine Corp Air Station) Iwakuni and lucky (again) for us, Chris’ staff stocked our room with Cheerios, milk and Starbucks coffee so we had a nice breakfast this morning.