Last night, David went to bed at 11:00 pm and set the alarm for 3:45am since the limo would be picking us up at 4:15am. Such an ungodly that we couldn’t ask anyone to drive us to the airport. It was so early that I wish we didn’t have a chatty, friendly driver.

I never slept since I was packing and cleaning. It was like being a teenager and pulling an all-nighter with the boys. Since all the boys were obviously not interested in going to sleep, I got photos of them together. At least they were awake enough to see us off. And also to give us their wish list for Japanese gifts. Eric said no consumables since he wanted a durable souvenir. Chinglish t-shirts for all, a sushi poster for Eric or fake sushi, of course they would love electric games or toys!

The goal was to stay awake and not fall asleep until the flight to Japan. I had 2 cat naps. Since I had an aisle seat, I was woken up. I watched Time Machine (Jeremy Irons plays a villan) and Lookout (Jeff Daniels). Time Machine was predictable 2/5 but Lookout was much better 4/5*.

I writing at the 3rd Maple Leaf lounge today. Benefits of being an elite flyer. We had 1/5 hour before we board in Toronto and ate breakfast there. Cold cereals, toast, yogurt, fresh fruit were offered. I had mocha coffee from the machine. It was too sweet but I was looking a caffeine hit. The first lag wasn’t too bad and of course its raining when we landed in Vancouver. Then went to the 2 lounges in Vancouver. One in the domestic terminal and one in the international terminal. And they were serving breakfast once again. I can’t remember the last time I had a teenage burger but that the best lunch option at 9:30am Vancouver time. I confess that it was a double teenage burger with onion rings. Once a decade can’t be too naughty. We were hoping for steak & eggs at Milestones but they weren’t open.

So we are camping here until we board our flight to Osaka. I’ve never had a chance to walk around the international terminal here. Probably because it wasn’t built the last time I had to fly international from here, or it wasn’t finished when we flew here to Hong Kong. It has an ocean aquarium wall and running stream too.

Now the lounge is offering instant noodles and crudites for lunch. David took some noodles. I also found vegetable soup, bread & butter, vegetable chips and cookies for dessert. David said to eat as much as possible before boarding so that you can sleep on the flight. Sleep over food!

This is now being typed from the executive business centre in our hotel in Tokyo Ginza. David is working upstairs in our room which leaves me to type here.

Second leg of trip is a 10.5 hour flight. What does one do? I was supposed to be sleeping as much as possible but its not that comfortable. Unless you were in first class. They had the last in what looked like chaise lounges with the chair back that flip down. They looked like a space age cocoons. Back to our economy class seats. I watched 2 movies. The first was Air Hogs starring Tim Allen, John Travolta. It was really hard to hear the dialogue over the noise of the plane unless I squished the airphone to my head. The movie kept jamming so I never saw the end. The trick is to find a movie under the appropriate genre. David found Pan’s Labyrinth on ‘international’ listing. It certainly deserved all the awards despite the civil war theme and cruelty. The next movie was Children of Men starring Clive Owens. I am a Clive Owens fan. This movie probably had the shortest screen time for Julianne Moore though. It was predictable. Al together I would have had a 5 hours sleep.

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