On the night of 6th May 2007, or rather, the unearthly hour of 330 am on the 7th of May, we reported promptly at the airport for our super duper siong flight to Tokyo. We had been persuaded by the woman at CTC to take this flight even if it meant not sleeping for the entire night because she said we would effectively gain a day in Japan. The kiasu-ness in us roared, and we took up her suggestion. I remember the many curses and "Wah lao i told u to take the other flight rite?!!" comments we made on the cab to the airport. Kiasu ma, what to do?
But hor, the early flight also made us realise something: friends, please don't take Northwest anywhere unless u really bo bian no money then take. Once again, let me remind u that we had to check in at 330 am, because Northwest got this policy about checking in 3 hours in advance, even for a 6 am flight. Then hor, when we reached the airport, we realised the agency had not bothered to allocate the seats for us. So my seat was behind Carine's lor. Cock rite. We met up with Barney (if u had forgotten who they are, please refer to the above post) and found out they were also also given seats away from each other. Talk about a bad start. But our neverdying spirit and our eternal optimism shown through, and when we boarded the plane, lo and behold! Our charm persuaded a nice dude to switch seats with us. Heh our trip was back on track!
The long flight was quite torturous, since Northwest seats seem uncannily cramp and the food was bad. The choice of cold, floppy-meated sandwich and mushy pie wasn't appetizing enough to warrant waking us up to eat, and the movies weren't especially new. Wah lao i ended up re-watching Never Been Kissed (a movie i caught 10 years ago) and The Incredibles. And trying to sleep in that confined 30 cm by 30 cm claustrophobic environment.
Well, luckily Japan was worth that arduous trip. I realised Carine is a much better flyer than i am, cos i complained throughout the flight until she kept shushing me. But she's scared of turbulence. So i'm still stronger. Ha ha! When we finally alighted at Narita, it finally hit us that we have finally begun our grad trip. My enthusiasm had been a little dampened by the siong flight, but the modern-ness of the architecture of Narita Airport, and the sounds of a strange language that for the life of me i could not understand carried me through.
We were met at the airport by this Jap guy who could speak Chinese and, at the risk of looking like uncle and aunties, we were led to the bus to go to our hotel. I did feel like an uncle when i looked around at the group lar, but i appeased myself by telling myself that i'm more handsome than all of them, and Carine was prettier than them. Hur hur.
After depositing our bags in this hotel near Narita (which was pretty nice, but not Westin or Hilton standard lar) we caught a shuttle bus to Aeon to while the time away. Thats the bad thing about joining a tour, the lack of control over what u can do with the time there. Because the rest of the tour group would only be joining us the next day, we had the entire day and night to while away. Aeon seemed to be an exact replica of Takashimaya and was so touristy that we got sian after a short while. Carine the pig complained that she was hungry after a short while so we had our first meal in japan - McDonalds lor. What to do, poor students on a grad trip.
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