Hawai'i?!

Okay, hi everyone :) Finally putting this together!

I apologize in advance for how scatterbrained this blog will be. Knowing me (as I assume you, the reader, do), this is quite fitting. So I'm actually going to start my documentation from before I even got to Tokyo.

So as I was glancing at my nifty itinerary, I noted that it said that I would leave Chicago at 9:50 AM and get to Honolulu at 1:50 PM for my 5 hour layover (fml). For reasons beyond my comprehension (I really do out-dumb myself sometimes...) I assumed that I would get in Honolulu at 1:50 PM Chicago time (lol, right?) and mentally prepared myself for a respectable 4 hour flight.

Hey, remember when Hawai'i was a million miles away in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?!

Yeah. I just about died when the flight attendant told us to enjoy our 9 hour flight. 9 HOURS?! That's a lot of ginger ale.

And indeed it was. I had about 3 cans. Oops. But it's okay, I'm on a natural detox now that I eat nothing but Japanese food. Anywayanwayanway

So 9 hours, 3 cans of ginger ale, and a lot of awkward airplane drool later, and I'm in Hawai'i.

Going to Hawai'i strictly for the purpose of eventually leaving Hawai'i kind of sucked, and I envied all the newlyweds/new-to-be-weds/bratty, spoiled children. BUT IT'S OK 'CAUSE I WAS GOING TO TOKYO AND THEY WEREN'T, LOL.

My pictures of Hawai'i are only kind of lame, because while I was stuck in an airport, I was also stuck in an airport that was partly outdoors, meaning that OMG BIRDS WERE EVERYWHERE

Seriously, they were tweet-tweeting all over the place, and I had to restrain myself from stealing them all. Anywhoodle, moar pics!

There was a lot of Pearl Harbor memorabilia (awkward........)

I really can't get over this.

Funny thing about this picture; it was unbearably hot in the airport, since it was open to the elements, so I was casually strolling around looking for a place that had A/C. Lo and behold, I found a place that sold lei's made of real flowers, which was conveniently FREEZING to keep them all alive. The kind woman kept eyeing me, because, well, I was sort of just standing in the middle of the store with my eyes closed, enjoying the cold air. So I hastily snapped a picture to make it look like I actually had something to do there, then ran away. MY AWKWARDNESS SURVIVED THE 9 HOUR FLIGHT, YAY

IamnotatouristIamnotatouristIamnotatourist OOH.

So anyway, after killing 5 hours (including glancing at the Starbucks menu and dying over the fact that a tall drink is 5 dollars!!), it was time for me to check in, go through security again, and get on my flight to Tokyo at last. I was literally so nervous that I forgot to speak Japanese to the flight attendants!

I got so excited when I saw things in Japanese, though; like, WHAT THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING OMG.

You think you've seen it all when it comes to airplane safety videos....

Going across the oceaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

My last view of Hawai'i and its gorgeous-ness. Le sigh.

Oh hey, operation Lose-All-The-Pounds-By-Way-Of-Excessive-Japanese-Eating is in order! But really though. There was so much food, and yet I didn't feel full at all. IT'S A TRAP. A GLORIOUS TRAP.

And that concludes blog post #1. Post #2 is going to be made in about 10 minutes. Contents: GUYS, I'M IN JAPAN (I think...)

-ホリ先生