The Day That Never Ended

I was wrong about the multiple New Years this year. There were none at all. There was only continuous daylight. I seem to have lost a day of my life. Maybe I’ll get it back when I return in March.
The time difference is 17 hours ahead in Nee hong. A detail that some of you might have investigated beforehand if you were taking this trip. You also might have found out what airline you were flying before arriving at the airport this morning. I did not. I gave my passport to two airlines, ANA, and Japan Air only to find out that neither had any record of me. I knew my flight was supposed to leave at 11:40 AM, but I figured that the 11:35 flight with ANA or the 11:50 flight with Japan air was close enough. It wasn’t.
Luckily I knew that I booked my ticket with American airlines and luckily a man from Japan Air who was in disbelief that I had no sort of print out or record locator or confirmation number, directed me to the terminal to the right of Bradley international at LAX. American air was right there. I WAS going international so it seemed to make more sense to be at Bradley rather than the domestic American terminal. My dad’s cousin Irene seemed to agree with me when she dropped me there that morning-thanks Irene! (These details about lack of preparation was what I warned my mother about when I gave her my blog address, preparing her for more cause to worry. You’re a strong woman mom.)
I’ve never crossed the Pacific before. It’s quite lovely (sorry, I just watched the movie Duchess on the plane and I’m writing like Kyra Knightly.) I’ve never shown up to a country alone where I don’t speak the language either. I’ve also never taken a trip by myself for more than a month, going to multiple destinations. The closest I came was renting an apartment in Argentina for about a month, but I did speak Spanish. Oy vey. Dios mio.
In some ways I’m a very adept traveler. I love learning a new language and navigating a city on my own, familiarizing myself with their public transportation system and getting around. The steward asked me if I worked for the government today on the plane because I think I must have a look of determination practicing Japanese and taking notes, just like I did at the only German language meetup I ever went to. (Shout out to Charlie).
On the other hand, I’m a lousy traveler, losing things every second (I just picked up my digital camera from enterprise this morning. I left it in the car after my trip to Death Valley this weekend.) I plan to wear my passport and wallet in my money belt at all time for this reason, which gives the illusion of a pot belly under my shirt.
Back to the positives, the steward mistakenly gave me a Japanese customs card, completely in Japanese characters and I managed for fill out about half of it correctly. That was with matching up the characters from another form to decipher their meaning, so it wasn’t so hard. I also asked the help of a nice Japanese man on my flight who keeps passing by my seat to go to the bathroom and smiling. Poor girl, he might be thinking. Still trying to figure out where to write her name.