Travel to Japan

The journey from San Diego to Japan was extremely pleasant. We owe this mainly to two things: Connor's mellow temperament and the American Airlines baby bassinet that hooks onto the wall in the bulkhead row. The travel day started off with us arriving at the San Diego airport with our four suitcases, travel crib and stroller, more luggage than I had ever imagined I could take on one trip. There was nobody in line, so we walked right up to the counter and were checked in and freed of our bags within minutes - thank goodness. We drank coffee, ate breakfast and hung out with Chuck and Kevin, Dylan's work colleagues who were also traveling to Japan. After a quick flight to LAX, we checked in for the international portion and requested a bassinet that we had heard they have only one of for each international flight. We got it! The ticketing agent moved us to the bulkhead row which had lots of extra leg room and is where the bassinet hooks onto the wall. There is a weight limit for the bassinet of 25 lb, and Connor is just shy of that, so we were very lucky. We didn't realize the magnitude of this little arrangement until we boarded the plane, put Connor in the bassinet for his afternoon nap while we ate lunch, watched an episode of The Office and forgot we had a baby. Once Connor woke up, we spent a few hours reading books, playing games and feeding him, then put him back in at 5pm for bedtime and didn't worry about him again until we were almost in Tokyo! The weirdest part is that he only slept for about two of the hours, but spent the next five hours or so just lying in the bassinet, playing with Kiki, his giraffe and hanging out. We left him in there, thinking that he would fall asleep again, but he just wanted to chill and seemed to really like having his own little space. We spent our time watching Up in the Air and Couples Retreat, drinking milk and eating M&Ms, and tried a little bit to sleep. Next thing we knew, we were descending into Tokyo.

Piece of cake! Except for the part where it was 4:30pm, but felt like 11:30pm and we hadn't slept yet, and needed to rally for the next five hours. The Tokyo airport was very efficiently run, so we had our baggage and were out of customs very quickly, with no lines to wait in. Our driver, Shin, helped us find the third floor post office where we picked up our rented cell phones, and then told us about some history, pointed out landmarks and helped us practice Japanese phrases during the two hour drive to Yokohama. We arrived at the apartment in the Kannai area of Yokohama around 7pm (felt like 2am to us), and got our luggage organized, gave Connor a bottle and did his second bedtime ritual within a twelve hour period. It turns out that his lack of sleep on the plane was a blessing, as he went to bed promptly around 7:30pm and stayed asleep until 5:30am. Our apartment is great and has all kinds of quirky things like the toilet with buttons for seat warmer, sprayer etc. and the bathtub with a button keypad and a lady's voice in Japanese telling you that she is filling it with hot water, or draining it. There is also amazingly good lighting, with little fixtures here and there in unexpected places. There are lots of shelves and little nooks for things, which I guess makes it easier to live in a smaller space. Yokohama has an extremely complicated trash/recycling pick-up policy which we have a binder of information on. You need to sort everything and even wrap up glass in paper (like a present) and write what it is on the outside of the package. More on this all later, for now we have arrived safe and sound and had an enjoyable trip. We can't wait to experience the next three weeks! Here is the control panel for our toilet: