Al: Safely in Japan

We made it to Japan safely and without incident. We all were at SEA by 11:30. When the Engs tried to get their boarding pass they were rejected and sent off to special services. After about a half hour in line, Randy decided to try the kiosk again but this time he was accepted and was able to get their boarding passes without going through special services. We went through security and stopped at Wendy’s for lunch. We got to the gate at 1:35 and boarded ready to begin our 10 hour flight to Narita. Everyone was too excited to sleep on the plane. I watched 2 movies and learned to play Bejeweled.

When we landed at Narita and deplaned, the first thing you noticed was the hot humid air. We went to the JR office and bought our train tickets to Shinagawa. The clerk said she would book us on the 5:44 NEX express. The current time was 5:30. She then started entering our data onto the touch screen. For some reason she had to enter us in twice. But the time I got our tickets it was 5:36. We hustled out of the JR office, down the escalator onto the train platform and approached the train. I told the conductor that we were in car 4. He told us to get on car 12 and told us to walk to our car from inside. We got to car 8 and the train started to move. We got to car 4 and finally got a chance to relax on the hour ride to Shinagawa.

At Shinagawa we while we were waiting for the Keihye Express to Yokosuka, Lucy noted that Austin didn’t have his suitcase. He had left it in the airport. We decide to push on to Yokosuka and have Kohichi help us with Austin’s luggage. We pulled into the Tamura’s apartment complex at 8:45 pm. 8:45 pm is 4:45 am, Seattle time. Ev and I had been up for nearly 21 hours. Shirley graciously had soup and sushi waiting for us when we arrived. It was great to get re-acquainted with the Tamuras.

Koichi called the Airport and learned that they had found Austin’s suitcase, praise God! The airport staff was minimal so they asked us to call again in the morning to make arrangements to ship the suitcase to Yokosuka.

Praise God that he got us here safely and watched over us. Please continue to pray for our health and quick adjustment to the time zone.