Off we gooooo

(I was trying to pack, while someone else thought they would take a nap)

Hard to believe it’s been such a long time (almost 2 months) since we wrote on the blog, but I guess we have been waiting for the mood to strike before we sat to blog on the great adventure—JAPAN! Our trip to Japan was amazing! I can’t imagine a more perfect time in our life to travel overseas and get a break from the daily grind of life. Mason and I looked into many different travel locations and decided on Japan because it was unlike anywhere we’d ever been and would probably get to go for a long time. We also felt it would be more friendly and accepting than somewhere like China (which was also in the running). Then the planning began and we had to decide if we wanted to venture to a foreign country where we didn’t know the language and tour ourselves. We ended up going on a small group tour (13 people) with the company Inside Japan. I have no doubt that if we traveled to Japan we’d go with this company again.

Mason and I flew from Shreveport to Houston (.75 hours) and then from Houston to Tokyo (13 hours). After flying for so long, I have no idea how Mason does this as a career. I guess riding is a lot different from piloting…anyways, we flew on Continental and the amenities were really nice all things considered. The plane ride there was overbooked, but after offering vouchers to enough people some spaces opened up and Mason and I ended up with an empty seat in our row. This was REALLY nice, and allowed us to “stretch” out as much as one could. Each seat had its own screen in the seatback and there were over 200 choices of movies and TV shows to watch. I think I watched 4 full length movies on the way there. This really helped make the time pass because the flight crew discouraged the use of light or having the windows open, so reading would have been difficult. We left Shreveport at 6am on Saturday, and due to the time differences we never saw night and arrived Sunday late afternoon in Tokyo.

Lots more to come, but we had to start somewhere. I’m pretty darn impressed that we also ended up traveling overseas for two weeks with just two backpacks!!!

(Our luggage for Japan)