Michiko-san!: Japan! Take off!

Wow! It's been quite a week! So, after finishing finals, packing up all my stuff, and saying goodbye to my friends and freshman year at Princeton, I flew back home to Los Angeles for a brief stop to visit my family and friends. Although I only had five full days at home, I realized that life at Princeton made me forget how to do nothing! I actually got quite restless relaxing at home without being constantly on the move.
Luckily, I did not have to adjust too much, as I left May 31st at 12:45 pm (yesterday? today? I don't even know...) to fly from LAX to Tokyo's Narita airport. I thought the flight was going to be a painfully long journey, at 12 hours, but I actually had a great time! In fact, the flight flew by so quickly that I could have even used a bit more time!

This Japanese version of the Delta Sky magazine made everything seem so real;

it finally hit me that I was going to Japan!

I also impressed myself by watching a total of 6 (yep 6!) movies: The Descendants, Restless, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Rango, Winnie the Pooh, and Tarzan. Clearly, the heavier dramas at the beginning dampened the mood a bit, so I had to cheer myself up with some good ol' Disney! Twelve hours later, I landed in Tokyo at 4:30 pm on June 1st.

It's amazing how much nicer Narita Airport is compared to LAX. Everything is so clean! And the workers actually want to help you! Whoa...There were also really cool vending machines.

I'm sure there will be more pictures of vending machines to come, since I am just so infatuated by the variety and colors! Japanese packaging is the greatest! Just look at the tea drink that I bought!

からだ　means "body" and 巡りmeans something like "going around" or "tour", but I'm pretty sure this was just trying to be all healthy and what not. I just liked how it looked! The fine print was also pretty funny...

I don't know what my Beauty Feeling is, but I'll take it!

After sailing through customs, baggage claim, and all that other stuff, I took a free bus to the Narita Tobu Hotel a few minutes from the airport. Aidan MacDonough, Marina Kaneko, and I are going to spend one night here, then go back to Narita to fly to Kanazawa tomorrow morning. Once I settled in, we all met up to get dinner from the gift shop/コンビニ　on the first floor. I was so intrigued by all the different Japanese 物, but I finally decided upon a package of cold noodles for 398 円　(about $5).