when people say traveling to asia takes a long time, they're not kidding. first I had to get to dallas. once there, I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore. i felt like one of those explorers on the animal planet channel:

look, there! behind the chair you'll see a fine specimen of a texas man. note the hot sauce bottle protruding from hs back pocket. amazing. see the way he tips his hat to passing women? yes, this is our lucky day.

seeing all of the advertisements for beef clued me in that i had not prepared my snack wisely. that's right, my soy rice cakes and accompanying red root and carrot veggie juice didn't exactly help me to blend in. i know, you're shocked.

so many spanish signs. i had forgotten where i was going.

the plane ride over was pretty standard. i always choose the window seat so that i can pass out, but his proved to be unwise. you forgot how often you have to pee during a flight until you have to climb over somebody to do it. i'm sure i was really irritating mitsuyo, my seatmate.

the food was iffy at best. as usual, the flight attendants were scary half-woman/half-machine-like creatures. they ask which meal you'd like and give you the other one. you ask for coke they give you sprite. definitey worth the cost of the ticket, lemme tell you.

on the bright side, each seat had it's own screen. good times. no one can ever see the one screen up front anyway.

truly uneventful. i was supposed to meet my friend jamie for dinner, but we were barely able to find each other. so, i just took her to the gate and had to run to make m connecting flight. the flight was very eventful.

i only slept for about an hour on the way to japan because i wasn't very sleepy. this meant that i was pretty whipped by the time i got onto the airplane. then, just like in the movies, i found that i was seated in front of the most hyperactive korean boy in the world.

yelling acros the plane to kids he didnt know. thumping the back of my seat. we didn't even make it to take-off before i turned around and politely asked him to stick a sock in it:

my words: could you be a little more quiet please? (sweet smile) my thoughts: i will *KILL* you, you little weiner (fangs)

he obliged...for a little while.

if you kill a child, but apologize to his mother in korean, does it still count as murder, or do they cancel each other out?

i put on my headphones, cranked the music up to high, ordered a glass of wine and passed out. thank God for mps3s and alcohol. i was never so happy to land.

jamie and i found each other. somehow. this entire week we were extremely lucky. things just came to us.

we couldn't figure out how to work the pay phone, so i hijacked a nervous looking guy to call our hotel for us. he didn't seem too eager, and we didn't seem to care.

our hotel came and picked us up nd away we went. it was a nice place and the manager was very friendly. after a quick snack we dragged ourselves into bed.