Japan Trip: Days 1&2

So we have made it safely back from Japan! It was a super long trip back and totally not fun, but I will get to that when we get to that day of my blogging about Japan:) We are all very tired today and Gabriel is not the happiest camper but we just need to get into the swing of things and all will be fine.  

So, day 1 of our trip was Monday. We got up early and got a ride from the teachers aide, Sandy, to the bus stop in Yangpyeong which is about 20 minutes away. There is no direct bus from Yongmun that leaves for the airport so that is why we had to make the special trip to Yangpyeong. Also, because Yangpyeong is still quite a ways from the airport, they only have three buses that leave during the day. Unfortunately they were all too late in the day for us so we had to head in a day before our flight and get a hotel. So we took our bus which was a little over two hours long.

The bus took us straight to the airport so when we got there we had to call our hotel and they came and got us with their van (cause they were cool like that!). I didn't take any pictures, but the hotel wasn't super nice, but good enough to hold us over a night. Gabriel ended up tripping and getting a bruise on his cheek that didn't go away our entire trip so poor Boo is going to have a bruise in all the pictures:(

The next morning we got up early and took the shuttle to the airport!

Check-in was a breeze along with immigration so by the time we got to our gate we still had plenty of time to sit around. Gabriel had lot of fun walking around and checking out all the different things. Unfortunately, he decided to try running again and he's just not very good at it yet and tripped and fell and got yet another bruise on his forehead:( I felt like a horrible mom and I think every day of our vacation some stranger asked us what happened, I think they thought we were beating the poor kid... I ended up putting make-up on him so people would stop asking us but it still didn't cover it up very well! Anyway, besides the little bump at the airport everything went great!

We got on our plane and found out that we had been upgraded to Economy Plus because they didn't have any other seats left that you could sit in with a baby. It was awesome! I love Economy Plus, everything is just so much nicer! 

Gabriel had fun playing with his life vest. See, whenever you fly over the ocean with a baby the flight attendant will come by before you take off and give you a special life vest for the baby. The first time this happened it made me really nervous, like they were expecting us to crash and die or something, but this time I was prepared and knew it was a common procedure. 

And you know how I told you that Koreans were paranoid about the Swine Flu? Well, it's not just Koreans, it's the Japanese too! I snuck a picture of a Japanese person and a Korean wearing their ever so fashionable masks. You see a lot of this in Korea and Japan.

For much of the plane ride Gabriel was fascinated by looking out the window! I'm not sure exactly what interested him so much because we were sitting right on the wing and couldn't see the ground very well, but non the less, he spent the majority of the flight like this...

When we got to Japan things continued to run smoothly. When we went through immigration they sent us to the priority line just because we had a baby. Because we got through immigration so fast we were also one of the first to grab our bags and the shuttle for the hotel was pretty easy to find too. 

When we got to the hotel Josh went to check in while I sat down with Gabriel. The hotel clerk told Josh that the room was not going to be ready for another two hours and we were going to have to wait. Josh came and told me and we were super bummed because Gabriel was in much need of a nap and we didn't want to sit in the hotel lobby for two hours with a tired, cranky baby. The clerk then came by a couple of minutes later and said that she called ahead to the cleaning ladies and they had cleaned our room and we could go up! YES! Score! We were super happy! I loved that hotel!

Anyway, so that night we went into town and I forgot my camera:( But all we did was eat and walk around a little bit. I had some very yummy dish that I can't remember what it was called, but it was rice with a creamy white sauce with mushrooms and duck! Delish! Gabriel thought it was pretty great too and ate half of my food:)

So, that's our first two days! Things went great and I actually liked traveling in an airport for once... until we came back of course, but like I said, we will get to all of that later.