Planes, Trains, and Automobiles...my journey to Japan

 If I would have known how long and arduous this trip was going to be, I think I would have tried to get more sleep the night before I left. Needless to say, it was a killer of a trip! I got to Midland International Airport at about 0730 on Saturday morning June 28. My flight left to go to Dallas at 0940 and arrived at DFW at about 1115. I then had to book it over to the next terminal to catch the 1230 flight to Tokyo. This flight was a good 13 hour flight...don't worry Mom, I got up and walked around every few hours to avoid the "blood clots." When I finally got to Narita airport in Tokyo, it was already Sunday afternoon because we had crossed the International Date Line. I think I got to Tokyo at about 1300 in the afternoon. Somehow, I figured out pretty quickly after getting through customs that my connecting flight was not in the same terminal, so I took the bus over to Terminal 2. When I went to get my boarding pass in the next terminal, I was told that the plane would not be able to carry my bags. They said that they would ship them to me about a week later, but I needed them a lot sooner than that...So I opted to take a flight out of  the neighboring Tokyo airport, Haneda. To get there I had to take a hour long bus ride through the city of Tokyo, which was pretty cool except for the fact that at this point, I could hardly keep from passing out (I couldn't sleep on my flight to Tokyo). I boarded the plane at about 1900 (7PM for you non-military folks) to go to Hiroshima. It was so cool...instead of people scanning their boarding passes, many of the passengers had the bar code that is on their "would-be boarding pass" uploaded on their cell phones...so they just held their cell phones up to the scanner and then got on the plane. Wow! 

The flight to Hiroshima was a good two hour flight. I slept the entire two hours. By the time I reached Hiroshima and had retrieved my bags, it was about 2130 Sunday night and I was completely exhausted...but my journey was far from over. I then boarded a bus and took another hour long bus ride to the Hiroshima train station. After hauling my two 50 pound suitcases up and down a myriad of long stairwells, I finally reached my train stop. After boarding the train, I managed to stay awake the 45 minutes it took to reach Iwakuni only because I was afraid of missing my stop. Upon reaching Iwakuni, I was able to take a taxi to the base. By the time I secured my room (they game me the wrong room - it turns out that the room they gave me was a shelter room used to house wives and children that have suffered domestic abuse) it was 0045 AM. I finally just crashed in my bed...

God was good. Many times I did not know where to go or who I needed to talk to, and every time that I prayed and asked Him what I needed to do, He provided guidance. It was really pretty amazing. There's no way I could have figured out all of this on my own... really cool!