Our July started out as a long day--a very long day. Exactly three years to the date, we left Japan. Our journey started out at 8:00 am July 1 (Japan) which was actually 7:00 pm June 30 (EDT). We arrived, in our hotel, in Clearwater (FL) at 10:00 pm July 1 (EDT) which was actually 11:00 am July 2 (Japan), for an elapsed time of 27 hours. It made me think of the following quote, which I recently heard.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. - Lao Tzu
While we took very few steps relative to our distance traveled, we did travel more than a thousand miles. We traveled over 8,000, to be exact.
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| Step 1: Blue Bus from Sasebo to Fukuoka International Airport. |
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| Step 2: Flying from Fukuoka to Tokyo |
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| Step 3: Flying from Tokyo to Washington, D.C. |
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| Step: 4 Flying from Washington, D.C. to Tampa, FL. |
Step 5 was driving the rental car from the airport to the hotel, but it took so ridiculously long to rent the car in Tampa, I forgot all about taking a picture. I can't sleep on airplanes so I had effectively been up over 24 hours at that part and was just glad I wasn't drowsy driving to the hotel. I think fear and adrenaline kicked in as this was the first time in three years that I had to drive on the right side of the road versus the left like I did in Japan. Unfortunately, I think the long time at the rental counter at TIA gave the kids a second wind and they were pretty amped up and giggly by the time we got checked into our hotel. I, on the other hand, was quite the opposite and this led to all of us being unhappy by the time we went to bed.
Overall, I can't complain. All the flights were on time and without incident. They couldn't give me my boarding tickets to all my flights in the beginning so I had to get them at each leg. That, coupled with long lines through Customs & Immigration and security led for very short waits in each airport. In fact, we barely made our Tokyo-to-Washington flight. We were running to the gate and were some of the last passengers who boarded the plane. The kids, with the exception of the end of the trip that I mentioned above, were awesome. They are such good air travelers. Goodness knows they've had enough practice--and have traveled many thousands of miles!
