Japan: First and Second Days

Okay, here's a synopsis of the first couple of days here in Japan, or Nihon as the Japanese call it.

I wish the very first encounter we had with the locals would've been more pleasant. But thanks to the swine flu, a team of Japanese health officials boarded the plane upon our arrival to collect our Questionnaires for Heath [sic] Status and issue us a verification of quarantine inspection. This process was about as effective and efficient (it took almost an hour to process the entire Boeing 777 aircraft) as the good ole TSA practices. Donning full surgical gowns, gloves, goggles, masks, and rubber boots, the health officials were much friendlier than they appeared. Nonetheless, the whole ordeal felt like a scene from Outbreak. I guess it's better than Snakes on a Plane...

Flashback to the actual flight from STL to LAX, LAX to Narita-Tokyo. Being a couple of hillbillies who've flown plenty of times but have done very little international travel, Kyle and I were in awe of the whole flight experience. First off, Kyle had never flown on a plane that had two aisles, so that was impressive. Secondly, we both made use of the personal touchscreens on the seat backs in front of us the entire way. We watched a couple episodes of 30 Rock and four different movies. I think Kyle even played a couple hands of blackjack. Finally, were fed two hearty meals during the 11.5 hour flight from LA to Tokyo. The one downer: Kyle's tray table was uneven which resulted in an unfortunate water spill into his crotch with over five hours remaining in the flight. I offered to spill water onto my crotch as a gesture of solidarity, a la Billy Madison, but he kindly declined my offer.

After deplaning and a quick and painless pass through customs, we arrived at baggage claim to find Elton sitting in his crate, trembling slightly, and extremely thirsty. It seems the A-holes--or AA-holes, since we flew on American Airlines--neglected to offer food and water to him during the hour layover in LA, despite the explicit instructions and food and water taped to his crate. It's frustrating when you follow the airlines instructions to the letter and they don't even bother to uphold their policy of offering food and water to the animal every 12 hours. We were irate, to say the least, and Kyle gave an AA supervisor an earful. We've since submitted a written complaint--beautifully written by Kyle, I should add--to American. We'll see what results from that. Bottom line, though: Elton arrived safely and was far less nervous throughout the whole process than we'd expected. Good job, buddy.

On to Animal Quarantine Services (AQS). We had heard from those who had been stationed in Japan before that the Japanese, though an honorable and generous people, have a penchant for inane and inefficient bureaucratic processes. We learned this first-hand at AQS. The whole process and paperwork drill involved with bringing a pet into the country is lengthy and cumbersome, but I was confident we had all our ducks in a row. The AQS official sorted through our paperwork and seemed to be satisfied. Then there was a pause as he conferred with his coworker. Already anxious to get Elton out of his crate (he had been in for almost 20 hours at this point), I started to freak out at the possibility of some sort of delay. Finally the official laid two forms in front of me: the one that I had filled out and a seemingly identical blank one. He pointed to the dates at the bottom of each form as he tried to explain. I then understood. The form I had completed was only good through 2005 (even though I downloaded this form directly from AQS website mere months ago). So I had to copy the information from the form I already completed to the blank form, which was identical except for the "good through" date at the bottom. Whew, good thing they caught that :) But, again, bottom line: Elton made it through inspection and only has 16 days remaining in his quarantine. Thankfully, he is able to fulfill his quarantine here on base. Hooray!

Like many "first times," my first experience with a Japanese toilet in the airport was exciting and confusing. The toilet bowl looked familiar enough, but the key pad adjacent to it had me guessing at first. How do I flush this thing? I recognized the bidet button and knew I didn't want that. I then decided that the button that said "flush" with a couple of musical notes underneath was probably my best bet. Unfortunately, that only made a flushing sound (a water-saving courtesy flush) and didn't actually rid the toilet of anything. In a flash of clarity, I decided to look where the flush handle is on every other public toilet and there it was! I was chagrined it took that long for me to figure it out but I'm chalking that one up to exhaustion.

After hardly having slept during the flight, Kyle and I were exhausted but wanted to take in every detail of our new surroundings. I was able to gawk out the window of the van during the two-hour ride from Tokyo to Atsugi. Kyle, however, was maintaining polite eye contact while talking shop to our sponsor/eye doc he'll be replacing on base. As most of you know, Kyle gets great pleasure out of gawking at things, especially city skylines, so I know keeping his focus on the conversation literally pained him. Every once in a while Kyle's eyes darted to the windows or windshield, trying to catch a glimpse. When we passed Disney Tokyo he gave in to his impulses and swiveled around in his seat to look.

We arrived on base and settled in to our spacious room at the Navy Lodge. We took Elton to the Harwood's, the family who generously offered to keep Elton the first night so we didn't have to drive him to the Camp Zama Army Base kennel. They live in base housing with a dog and a cat and said if Elton gets along with their beasts, he could stay there until we get our housing. So far, so good. The animals are living in harmony and Kyle and I are able to walk three minutes to their place to walk the hounds every day. What a HUGE blessing this has been. A huge thank you to the Harwoods :)

That's all for now. I plan on posting regularly so check back in shortly if you're interested.