Have Infant - Will Travel

Hisashiburi desu, ne? It's been a long time...

But we've arrived back home to Yokosuka, Japan. For Nicki and Joshua, it had been nearly four months since they had slept in their own beds. As for me, just under 90 days as required by the good folks in the Navy Housing Office. Best of all, we didn't have too much trouble in our first international journey as a family of four.

We left Sacramento on the afternoon of Thursday, November 6, so that we could head to San Francisco for the night. Our flight itinerary had us leaving from San Fran in the early morning and we didn't want to risk driving over 100 miles into morning rush hour traffic. We stayed the night at the Embassy Suites San Fran Airport, and I would like to take a moment to give them a major Domo Arigatou Gozaimasu. Only a few minutes away from downtown San Francisco, the hotel was reasonably priced, with clean and comfortable rooms and some of the friendliest hotel staff imaginable. High class from A to Z.

Early on Friday morning, we were awoken to the beautiful buzzing of our hotel alarm, followed a second later by the wake-up courtesy call from the hotel's front desk. We finished packing our suitcases, grabbed a hearty complimentary breakfast in the hotel lobby, and boarded the hotel shuttle to the airport.

Upon arrival, our luggage was carried by a friendly airport staffer to our American Airlines check-in counter. I barely had to do any heavy lifting. Once we checked in, we went to the gate to wait for the plane. There, I asked at the gate desk about bulkhead seating, so we'd have more space for the baby. The representative at the counter immediately called me by name (without even asking) and handed me the bulkhead seating tickets that were already printed out. I guess she had been tipped off that we were the ones with the one month old baby on board.

We had a layover in Los Angeles, and the flight there was a major success. Joshua was a stellar five year old and Samuel slept and ate (not at the same time) the entire way. At LAX, we asked again about bulkhead seating, and this time they even provided a bassinet for us to use as well. Excellent. Despite the 11 hours we spent commuting between LAX and Narita Airport in Tokyo, everything went quite well. We arrived on time, our luggage arrived rather expeditiously, and we made it through immigrations and customs alright with the new baby... no questions asked. (Baby Sam's passport was a newly issued tourist passport, while the rest of us traveled using "official" passports, so I was a little worried about getting cleared through).

The only snag in our plans came when we got to the DoD Shuttle Bus a few minutes too late for the bus ride to Yokosuka. Instead of taking the train, we opted to sit the next two hours and wait for the next bus. We just had too much luggage to try to lug around on trains... and we had no trouble sitting and sleeping on the bus.

By the time we made it back to Yokosuka, it was 9:00pm. I ran over to long term parking to get the car, and it started up on my first try... thank goodness. Drove back over to PSD to pick up the family and then we got home, safe, sound, and sleepy.

Nicki's Turn

'Cha Cha Changes '(Quoted by David Bowie)

We are finally back home! So far it's taken us about 5-6 days to get "back to normal" whatever that means. I suppose it means that the days are not just flowing into one another and we are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to sleep deprivation. The hotel stay gave me about 2 hours of sleep and the plane ride gave me about 1 hour or sleep so all together in a 48 hour period I had about 3 hours of sleep. So, by smoothly I suppose Mike means that it went smoothly for Joshua and Samuel. It was sheer hell for me and that's as far as the bitching will go. (for this part)

I give a lot of credit to American Airlines though, they kick United's butt when it comes to service.

It's amazing the sense of change and amnesia we've gotten for being gone 4 months. I feel terrible that I've forgotten the names of some close acquaintances and friends and Joshua becomes unnerved when I ask him if he remembers "so and so" from his pre-school; whom he's now in kindergarten with. However things are trickling back into memory. The transition to Joshua's new kindergarten has gone fairly smoothly. Like most all of DODDS teachers, Mrs. Salter is familiar with the challenges students face during a transfer. She has done great with Joshua and he has had a good time in school so far. He has another field trip coming up soon to a Japanese Kindergarten and I can't wait to find out all about it.

We are completely busy trying to play paper work catch up in all areas of our lives. Most importantly getting Sam registered at the hospital so that he counts as a person in our family. Also working on his military passport. According to Mike, and going by the constant frantic look on his face, he has a mountain of things to catch up on at work. I on the other hand have to get used to the new home routine along with going through the numerous boxes that we sent back home.

I'm also having to restock the fridge. I received a phone call today that my grandmother passed away. I don't think it's hit me quite yet as I have things keeping me busy here. All of a sudden though, emotions will creep up on me in waves. It's especially hard, because in my childhood she was the prime caregiver for me for some time while my mother worked and went to school. Restocking the fridge is just one way to get my mind off of things. Today was the first errand that I did outside of base. I just HAD to get to a Japanese grocery store. I made sure to bring a list and stick to it... sort of. I ended up buying a couple of junk food items: Meiji Creamy Chocolat Meltykiss and the new Kit Kat flavor. I'm not quite sure what the flavor is. I have to wait until Mike comes home to read the package. It's some sort of tea though I know that much. Oh yes, and my Mt. Rainier coffee drinks. Other than the 3 junk food items, we are working hard to detox ourselves from the American diet we were going on. Basically it was a free-for-all there. The reason being that it could possibly be years before we have another carne asada burrito or In and Out Burger.

One more big change is that the Kitty Hawk has left and in its place is the George Washington. The carrier is much larger and carries many more service members. I haven't really had time to observe any transitional changes on base yet although I'm sure there will be many.