The Journey Begins

So, finally the day has arrived for me to make my journey to Taiwan to visit friends. I have plenty of responsibilities at home (i.e. work, papers for classes, kid stuff, cooking for roommates, starting fires, being a taxi service, etc.); however, this trip has been in the planning stages for a couple years now. My life has been a state of preparation for this opportunity; therefore, I plan to make the best of it. On this blog, I will post selected pictures of the day along with a narrative to accompany the picture. I will spare you the mundane details of showering, brushing teeth, drinking my first cup of coffee (unless there is something special about it), etc. However, my goal is to share the experience with anyone who cares. Maybe the next time, I will find a few others to join me and make the experience even more fun.

Day 1: Getting Started

I got up very early on Thursday morning (3:15 am) and got ready to take the shuttle from my hotel to the airport. I had a nice conversation with the guys at the front desk and felt no stress. I didn't even have to wait in a long line at the airport (the wonders of modern technology, even in the Spokane, Washington). The wait to board was only about 20 minutes, and despite how small the airplane was (a little United Express plane), I had a lot of space because there was no one in the seat next to me. I slept most of the way to San Francisco and was impressed when I got to the airport, which looks more like a Mall (a huge one at that) than an airport. Now I'm sitting and waiting for another 1 1/2 hours for my flight across the ocean. I will write more later and possibly even add a picture or two.

Day 1: Tokyo Airport

The flight to Tokyo was really long, but I got some good movie watching in and caught some ZZZs in the process. The funny thing about being cooped up in a seat for that many hours, however, is that you start thinking too much. My thoughts about halfway in went to a conversation that my mother and I had on the phone a day or so before the accident in May. She was talking about talking to my uncle Harold about my trip and how his daughter really enjoyed living overseas (in Japan, I think) and how I really needed to take advantage of as much of this trip as possible. This was an emotional part of the trip because I was expected to report back to my mom the details of the trip because she tended to live the world vicariously through Jim (my brother) and me (and our families). Anyway, I had a few tears in my eyes as I realized I was actually making the trip. I also started thinking about a book I read several years ago called Kon Tiki, which is about a trip that an explorer named Thor Heyerdahl took across the ocean to the Polynesian Islands from Peru (I believe it was Peru). Flying over the vast expanse of ocean is a sobering experience, but it was very exciting at the same time.

Well, I'm now in the Tokyo airport, safe and sound. So far, the trip has gone very well, and I'm looking forward to the next stretch and the 12 days to follow. This will truly be an adventure...but hopefully it is just the beginning of several such adventures throughout the world in years to come.