Runaway June ~ AFE World Tour ~ Yokota AB, Japan

SUNDAY, MARCH 19^TH – TRAVEL FROM KOREA TO JAPAN:

Lobby  call was at 9:30 am today.  Our hosts and the bus were there and we made the hour and a half drive to Seoul airport. We are flying Korean Airlines and that is always a challenge!!!  I was able to talk them into letting us check in as a group which helped a little.

We had to check in at one counter, then pay excess at a different location, take the large guitar cases to another location, go through a security check and then through passport control before finally arriving at our gate area.

Everyone was hungry so we found a food court and had lunch.   The flight departed on time and it was FULL!  I had tried to upgrade but Korean Air and All Nippon hold their business class seats for the citizens of their countries and it’s impossible to upgrade.  It was a 2 ½ hour miserable flight.

We landed on time and that’s when the fun began! At least this time we made it out of the jetway before being swarmed by dozens of Japanese in uniforms asking for QR codes.  We had all our paperwork this time but Jen and Stevie had to go in a different line because they were not vaccinated and had to show the negative test results. Jen said they never even looked at the test results!!!

A couple of the guys decided not to wait for the group and went ahead to Immigration. Only they got in the wrong line.  We have SOFA Status and that’s a totally different area.   We could see them in their line and kept motioning for them to come to where we were.  They finally saw us and came over.

All our bags arrived and we went through Customs.  Spike was meeting us but we had to wait awhile for him to find us.  He had a really nice bus waiting for us to drive us to Yokota.  He said there was a shopping mall with lots of restaurants about 10 minutes from the airport where we could eat.  It was a great place to stop and there was a sushi restaurant with the conveyor belt that I love so much.  We all ate SOOO much sushi and it was excellent.  I went to the ladies room and it was decorated with all “Hello Kitty” designs – which Zoe loves right now.  I took lots of photos and sent her.  There was also a money exchange, ATM and Starbucks in the Mall.  A couple of us walked over to the 7-11 and grabbed some snacks.   I was hoping they had an egg salad sandwich because that’s my favorite.  I was going to put it in the refrigerator for tomorrow.  But it’s so popular, they were sold out.  I’ll find one tomorrow!

We learned as we were driving to lodging that the building is turning off ALL the power at 8:30 am and not turning it back on until 4:30 pm.  So, we decided to leave for Tokyo at 8:30 am.  The lodging manager said even the toilets won’t flush! There was a notice on our doors stating that the power was being turned off because they are cutting down trees behind the building. What the heck?  Don’t understand that! I was considering not going into Tokyo and staying behind to work.  Now I can go and not feel guilty since I won’t have any electricity to be able to work!

Got everyone in their rooms and the wing that the girls and I are in have washers and dryers in the rooms….something I was counting on!   Only I got to my room and unpacked a few things only to see a huge sign on my washer and dryer saying it was out of order.  They had one more room available so I spent 30 minutes moving to that room. I started a load of clothes while I was taking a shower and then put them in the dryer.  Only, there was no way to turn on the dryer.  The man from the front desk came up and climbed around on top of the dryer and looked everywhere.   He finally found a knob that looked like it was for the washing machine, pushed it and the dryer came on!  Whew.

So, it’s 2 am and I’m going to bed so I can get up at 6 am!

Jude

MONDAY, MARCH 20^TH – DAY OFF IN TOKYO:

Everyone met in the lobby at 8:30 am this morning in anticipation of the power being turned off all day.  V.G. and his wife “Ingrid” were waiting for us with lots of “tips” to insure we made the most of our limited time.  His wife is so sweet and lovely!

First stop was the train station to purchase train tickets.  Then we had a long train ride into Tokyo with several connections.  A friend of Jen’s recommended we eat lunch at a pizza restaurant where the Beatles ate!  We had a pretty long wait to get a table but the food was really good.  I had an amazing Caprese salad.  They only had 2 types of Pizza but it was definitely worth the trip to the restaurant.

From there we had another train ride and then a walk along a river to the Meiji Jingu Shrine.  We stopped to take lots of photos of the Cherry Blossoms since this was our best opportunity to see those.  We walked around the Shrine for a while and had some amazing Green Tea Ice Cream.

Had another train ride and then ended up at the “Scrambler Square” in Shibuya City.  It’s where 5 streets intersect and hundreds of people all cross at once.   Next was a shopping trip to Don Quixote.  Found lots of interesting “goodies” to take back to the U.S.

By that time, it was 6:30 pm and everyone was hungry.  We were trying to find somewhere with sushi and either ramen, udon, yakatori, etc.  But the restaurants only had one of items at each place.  Tokyo was even more crowded today because tomorrow is a National Holiday (Equinox Day).  Lines were very long at all the restaurants.  We finally had to split up and go to different restaurants for dinner.

Everyone except Don and I wanted to go to “piss alley” and bar hop.  Ingrid rode the train back to base with Don and I and we left the other with V. G.  I know the last train back was at 11 pm, so they weren’t able to stay out very long!

It was a fun, tiring day and I hit a new record of over 24,000 steps today.  Check out my photos on Facebook on Judy Seale, Judy Seale International or Stars for Stripes.

Jude