Off to Tokyo, Japan

Sitting in San Francisco Airport, waiting to grab my flight to Tokyo, Japan – and yes... I'm pretty stoked!

It's hard to describe my eagerness to get back there. I was grinning like a madman when I walked through security, which probably explains why rather than sending me through the metal detector, they sent me through some other monster that did magical wave stuff. One pat down later and I was through. America – they are not big fans of putting me into the country, but they're so quick at getting me out. And right now? I couldn't be more pleased.

I'm waiting to grab my JAL flight, and waiting for a new airline is kind of like waiting for a blind date. Will this airline be pretty? Will it give me my space, or be needy and stifling? Will it expect me to pay for dinner, or make an offer of its own? How does it feel about drinking? Will it want to watch a movie, or prefer silence and quiet?

Comparing dating to airplanes – clearly I did not date enough that this is the metaphor that strikes me.

Come on movies built into seats! That's all I want. 11 hours of god awful movies. And due to the wonders of time zones, I'll be rolling in to Tokyo around midnight, but it won't be midnight – it will be four in the afternoon. Oh yeah, after all those movies I will be all sorts of loopy, and that really, really excites me. Now if there are no movies, I'll have to read. But if I spend my time reading I will eventually grow tired, and then sleep, and then be much less loopy. And really, that's all part of the fun.

Also – I'm meeting friends at the airport, which means if I'm a wee bit crazy they'll help point me in the right direction.

In case of meeting problems I'm prepared with a print out of directions that will point me in the right direction. I have no real faith in this – but I do have faith in the phone number that is attached to it.

Boarding the plane, I delighted in the fact that there were built in movies. I selected Up in the Air, and watched corporate America go to work. It was charming, and didn't play out in the cliché way. For that, it gets my stamp of approval.

I then selected a Japanese Movie, A Good Husband, and began to watch it. Ten minutes in, I couldn't read the subtitles. I pressed pause, and fell off to sleep. Somewhere, due to the magic of time zones, March 31st ended.