Day 358: December 28 v2 — Tokyo to Kauai — Back in the US!
Flying from Japan to Hawaii is traveling back in time.
We spent our first December 28th, 2019 in Tokyo — homeschooling, exploring Shinjuku, then heading to Narita airport in Tokyo for our 9pm flight. More details in Margaret’s post on Day 357 yesterday… errr, the first today.
We took off at 9pm on Dec 28th, flew for 6.5 hours and landed in Hawaii at 9am… on December 28th, 12 hours before we took off. That started Day 358. Our second today.
Margaret and I actually debated whether our two December 28ths should get one post or two. I thought it should be one. She wanted two — probably because she was due to write the blog post! She won.
The kids slept for most of the flight. Margaret and I — not so much. It was dark and quiet during takeoff and I started to get dozy, but 30 minutes later they threw on all the lights and started a full dinner service. We all skipped dinner and the kids fell asleep but Margaret and I watched shows (Margaret: The Crown, Me: first episode of The Spy— really good.) Once the lights went off again it was an on and off rest (won’t call it sleep) for a few hours and then the lights were back on for breakfast. Willa actually ate a little and went back to sleep. We had to wake her up when it was time to get off the plane in Honolulu.
We were all exhausted but Margaret and I were both energized by being back in the US. We had a four hour layover — kids vegged on their iPads while Margaret and I wrote the blog — and finally took off for Kauai around 1:30. It was a quick 20 minute flight. I slept for all 20.
The first two rows of this flight were filled with a family in Baltimore Orioles themed Hawaiian shirts. They all gave James high fives as he walked down the aisle. Welcome to America! We thought this was such a funny coincidence.
Willa and I took the rental car shuttle to enterprise and grabbed the car while Margaret and James got the bags and met the O’s shirted family. Turns out they are big fans and two or three of them got the shirts at a Camden Yards giveaway night. The dad went on eBay and found several more so they could all be decked out for their vacation in Kauai. The three twenty-something kids were mortified, telling Margaret not to “egg on” their dad by saying she likes the shirts. They are now followers of our family IG account.
Willa and James fell asleep in the car before we left the airport grounds. It actually felt strange to drive on the right side of the road after 6 weeks in South Africa and a month each in Australia and New Zealand.
It was a 45 minute drive to our Airbnb house in Princeville on the North Shore. It’s the *perfect* place for our last week of the year. Bedrooms on the first floor, big open kitchen and living space on the second floor with two balconies (lanais), all newly remodeled, views of the ocean and mountains, huge new TV, heated pool, big new washer dryer, etc.
Seven nights here with absolutely nothing planned. Heaven.
Margaret headed out to the grocery store while I got us unpacked and took a swim with the kids.
At the grocery store Margaret was having fun rediscovering a few items she didn’t even know she missed — Tostitos Scoops, Thomas English Muffins, Pepperidge Farm Milano mint chocolate chip cookies.
I had been away from American ESPN for nearly a year and arrived at halftime of the Clemson v Ohio State college football semifinal. What timing!
We made dinner and got the kids to sleep. They had so little sleep last night that it didn’t take them long to zonk out. Unfortunately they would be up later, fighting jetlag for a chunk of the night.
Margaret recommended that we watch Blue Crush to get us into the Hawaii state of mind. There were some great surf scenes and some hot girls but man, it was a terrible movie — not to mention cringe-y given how the world has changed in the last 17 years. Margaret was embarrassed for her 2002 self that she actually enjoyed it when it first came out.
