The Long Road Home

We have finally arrived alive and relatively sane to Fukuyama. We have actually been here for two full days now, but the flight here was pretty grueling and combined with jet lag I was in no mood to blog about it initially.

For lack of a relevant picture: a stone Anpanman

We left from Winnipeg on Monday evening and first flew to Vancouver. This was a good flight since we were all well rested and still excited about the trip. The kids were great and I was under the delusion that maybe the whole trip would be like this. We then waited in Vancouver for 7 hours before our next flight. Since I had booked my tickets online, they weren't able to issue me a ticket for William until I showed up at the airport in Vancouver. I am not sure why booking an infant ticket is so complicated, but I stood at the Air China desk from 10:30 pm until almost 2 am while they tried to add him. I was started to get a bit anxious about our 3 am flight by this time and as soon as the ticked was booked we rushed our way through security and to our gate. This sounds much less complicated than it was, since both kids were fast asleep but needed to be taken out of the stroller and pass through the metal detector by themselves. We arrived at our gate with tired, crying kids just as they started boarding. Once on the plane Karlee and I realized how incredibly tired we were ourselves but the stewardesses felt the need to keep the lights on glaringly bright and do "helpful" little things for us every 10 minutes, like offering us drinks, more blankets for the kids, reaching across us all and shutting our window blind, and of course asking questions about the boys. By the time they turned the lights off and stopped constantly bothering us, the kids were once again awake and we didn't have the option to sleep. Theo and William good for the most part considering how long the flight was, and it was only in the last 4 hours that Theo told me he didn't really want to be on the plane anymore.

Just love this gal

At this point I need to draw attention to how truly amazing Karlee is. She didn't complain once about the terrible flight times, long waits, Theo asking questions every waking moment, heavy carry-ons and crying baby. She never took the lighter load unless forced to and was always willing to deal with my cranky kids even when I am sure she would have much rather been trying to sleep. Most amazingly, she never snapped at any of us and continued to be friendly and positive long after most people would have burst into tears or killed all three of us. We absolutely never would have made it to Japan without her.

Our adventures in China to follow...

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Since finding out where we are heading to in Japan I decided to go ahead and book plane tickets for the boys and myself. Dustin had heard that it is possible to get cheaper tickets through the travel agent who books all of the JET flights, so he popped them off an email while I did some independent investigations. The travel agent quoted us at 2,700$ to fly into Hiroshima. I am pretty proud that I managed to book them myself (through Expedia.ca) for only 1,500$.

Theo loving the airplanes

It really helps that we are flexible in our arrival date. If we were going to Tokyo orientation with Dustin, it would have doubled the cost of our tickets (on top of what even the travel agent quoted us). Just one more reason to bide our time in the 'Tob. I didn't want to remain in Manitoba too terribly long though, so our flight leaves on August 22nd. It is a very indirect flight, I am sure that this is part of the reason that it is so much cheaper, and we will be flying from Winnipeg to Vancouver, Vancouver to Beijing, Beijing to Dalian, and then finally from Dalian to Hiroshima. The layovers aren't insanely long (not like some of the 20 hour + layovers that I have had to put up with in the past) so I am sure that we will get to Japan with two tired, but at least living, children. I have heard from a frequent flier of Air China, who will be our carrier, that the breakfast and lunch they serve is creepy at best, but the supper is o.k. It is just our luck that we will be flying through breakfast and lunch hours and not during supper. I suppose Karlee and I like a bit of culinary adventure, Theo eats anything, and William has me, his portable food of choice.

I was surprised to find that we actually had to pay for William's ticket even though he will be sitting on my lap. He is only adding about 18 lbs. to the weight of the plane, and won't be eating any of their snacks or interesting meals, so I am not really sure why we should be paying. On the other hand, I found out that Theo's ticket is only 75% of the price of an adult ticket even though he gets his own seat, so I guess it all evens out in the end.


Meanwhile, Dustin won't have to share a bed with the baby and I, put up with Theo's noise and breakdowns, and my badgering. How will he survive for 3 weeks without us?