Planes and Buses, Planes and Buses

Time: none
Distance: none

Today was an entire day of travel. An. Entire. Day.

Meagan dropped Dave and I off at the Charlotte airport for our 9:51 am flight to Chicago. Once in Chicago we hopped on the plane bound for Tokyo and met up with Zac, Jack, Luke and John. It sounds like we were it at Bible camp or something with all of those names. Our flight departed at 12:05 on Thursday and wouldn't land until 3:00 pm on Friday on Japan. The flight alone was just over 12 hours. The time difference is 13 hours. Jet lag central.

During the flight I sat in the same row as Jack Fultz and we were able to talk strategy among other things. I watch several movies including most of Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (I'll give it a 6), The Proposal (6), State of Play (7/8), and one more that I can't remember. I also finished the book Sway (very similar format to most marketing/advertising/negotiation books. Come up with a few cases to illustrate a theme. Find several mini-cases to illustrate the theme. Summarize research papers. Conclude with summary of first case study and how it illustrates the theme), and started another book Then We Came to the End.

I didn't sleep much on the flight, but there would be time for that later.

Upon getting to Tokyo we did the whole customs thing and then wasted time in the airport while waiting for the west coast guys (Murat and Ben). Once we were all together we took a bus from Narita (international airport) across town to Haneda (domestic airport). It was already getting dark around 5:45 pm when the bus left and completely black when we arrived at our destination around 7:00 pm.

We jumped on a 45, 60, 75, 90 minute flight to near Izumo? I don't remember the flight because at this point my body was shutting down. Our team was seated at the very back of the plane and almost immediately my eyes shut for the duration. Normally the team flies to Izumo but for whatever reason we stopped in ??? which was a 90 minute bus to the Wel City Hotel in Izumo.

We finally got to the hotel around 11 pm on Friday October 9th. I essentially lost Friday to roughly 26 hours of travel. The mood will improve in the morning when we get to spend our first day in Japan without the worries of making flights and catching buses. I look forward to meeting our hosts and exploring more of the city.

So far the guys on the team are great. We have enjoyed sharing stories about coaches, races, travels and the Ivy League in general. Basically we walk around with our noses sticking up in the air. Not because we are elitist Ivy League grads, but because we feel huge compared to some of our new Japanese friends.