Mostly boring stuff

So here's a quick rundown of the trip.
We left the house at 1 a.m. on Monday, drove about two hours to the airport in D.C.. We got to the airport FOUR hours early and had to sit around for a while. The plane left at 7 and I met Nick. After about 45 minutes of flying, we landed in Kennedy airport in NYC where we had to go to a different building to get to Korean Air and go through security again. After waiting around there for about 6 hours (with no free wifi!) and meeting two more BCA students, we left on the 14-15 hour flight to Seoul. That flight had a 50 minute delay before takeoff for refueling, as if they got in the plane and were like "oh yeah, we need to put gas in, lol."

It took forever. I spent most of the time trying and failing to sleep, occasionally listening to some of the many Korean and Japanese music options they had, including some I knew. And I watched movies: Source Code (I'd been wanting to see that and it was pretty awesome), X-Men: First Class (Danielle said she liked it, and it was pretty good too), and Kung Fu Panda 2 (I didn't want to think any more).

I got a little sleep in the middle, probably less than an hour, and closer to the end of the flight I slept a couple hours I think.

Anyway, that delay at take off caused us to be late for the next flight, but to our surprise they held the plane for us, sparing us from needing to spend the night in Seoul, and we ran to the plane, once again going through security. This final flight was about 2 1/2 hours long and also seemed to drag on, but filling out the customs forms killed some time, along with a good Chrono Trigger playing session.

When we arrived in Sapporo, our luggage did not make it on the flight as it was unable to run as quickly as its human counterparts. This only applied to the four BCA students who were on the flight from NYC to Seoul, but on the flight and at baggage claim there were airport employees there to meet us and take care of having our luggage delivered to the college the next day.

After that, we met the BCA Resident Director who is refreshingly hilarious. When we told him that we had them deliver our luggage to the college tomorrow, he promptly informed us that this was unacceptable. And then we realized he was joking. Now we're staying in a hotel that is attached to the airport, we didn't even have to go outside, and will be leaving tomorrow morning to stay at the college for a few nights before meeting our host families. The room is significantly nicer than the Olympics center where I stayed on the May trip in 2010, so I don't have the sense of utter despair that I had last time (though I did have some of that on the endless flight).

All the other BCA students are talking in a room down the hall, but it's pretty loud and hard to get a word in so I was perfectly happy to retreat to my room and check out the internet. And of course, the TV has lots of weird Japanese commercials and game show sort of things. And the toilet has a built in bidet which I have yet to try, but my roommate, one of the guys I met at the Kennedy airport, says it's the best thing ever.


Ok, that's everything.
Except for the picasa web album where I'll be putting pictures which is here: Japan 2011 Photos