John comes to pick us up right on time, and we are off to AVL to start our journey to Tokyo!  First flight to Chicago goes smoothly enough and we have plenty of time for the lounge before our long flight to Haneda.  We’ve got great seats, all the way at the back of the plane.   One of the only rows of 2 in all of coach – and not too near the bathrooms, so it all works well.  We’re staying up most of the flight because we get in so late, we have booked a hotel in the airport and figure we’ll get over our jet lag by sleeping there and not on the plane. 

The flight is great – food is ok – a mix of Japanese and Western (and the shrimp tempura just wasn’t a good frozen/reheated thing on a plane), but otherwise fine, if not a little odd. What is called breakfast is actually a full dinner type meal – the options are fusilla pasta in red sauce or stewed chicken in tomato sauce.  Well, it is evening, but still. 

We land on time, but then the gauntlet begins.  Oh dear me.  The immigration line takes for-freaking ever – over an hour – even with all our QR codes and digital stuff filled out correctly.  Then the luggage!  Geez.  That takes another hour, and we are almost panicking because our bags are absolutely some of the last to come off that conveyor belt.  But, arrive they do, and we are finally heading off to the Haneda Excel hotel for our first night in Japan.

We find the shuttle bus easily enough and hoof our way down the long terminal to the hotel – where everything is electronic.  The whole check in is done on a machine without the need for a human desk clerk.  Of course we do need a human desk clerk to walk us through it, but once that is handled we are up in our room in a jiffy – marveling at all the amenities – Pajamas!  And razors and combs and hair ties and toothbrushes. It is a cornucopia of amenities – we never need to even use our 3-1-1 bags!

Wisely having brought along beer and wine from home, we have our night cap drinks will sitting at the window across from the vacant terminal building, watching the rain pour down.  Welcome to Japan!