A Time of First Meetings

So after about 20 hours of traveling, we have finally arrived to New York City! The journey itself went pretty well all things considered. I think we were really lucky, that the longer of the two flights (Narita-->JFK) was pretty empty, so we got the whole first row in the middle to ourselves as well, not just our seats on the side. Unfortunately, since it was the first row, the TV and food tray were built into the armrest, leaving us only two seats to "stretch out" on. But hey, that's still two seats longer than we would have had, if the plane was full, so I'm OK with it.

There was a little rushing in Narita, because our flight was a little late (10 minutes or so), then as we tried to get through immigration, we forgot to fill out the embarkation cards (again) mainly because there were huge signs of "MILITARY, TAKE ONE" right next to them. As we are not military, we didn't take any, and had to go back and fill them out. To my defense, I'm used to dealing with immigration into the US, where, if you're not a citizen, you fill things out as you come in, and keep the paperwork in your passport until you leave. Japan is the opposite. Then, when we were almost at our gate, James realized that we left his backpack behind at a pre-immigration check point. So off he dashed to retrieve it, and I went ahead to our gate, finding that pre-boarding for families just started. I boarded the plane with Rini, frantically telling to whichever ANA employee that would listen what happened, hoping to help James out from afar, knowing the possible problems he'd face at the immigration check point. They called to the check point to notify them of his return, but it seemed it wasn't really necessary, as James joined me in the aircraft within ten minutes.

Rini didn't seem to have any problems with the pressure change of taking off and landing. She also enjoyed the flight as much as it was possible in the circumstances. Outside her naps, she slept a good 3+2 hours or so, and in the bassinet to boot, so I think both James and I got a little rest.

I also had a chance to finish two movies, Billy Elliot and Hitchcock, both of which I liked very much. They had The Hobbit, too,but I dared not start such a long movie, in case I couldn't finish it.

The food was good, and I was really pleased with the Baby Meal ANA offered. I forgot to take a picture, but it had some hot watery rice (please excuse my bad memory of the proper term) with some steamed/cooked vegetables, as well as regular baby food in a jar, yoghurt, senbei, 100% vegetable juice, and water. I've also prepared some apples, strawberries, a banana, raspberry pancakes, and cheese at home for the flight, so we were pretty well set.

We landed in JFK a little late due to such a heavy fog, that the captain decided to abort landing twice. I could barely see the landing strip once we did touch down, so I wasn't surprised at all at the multiple attempts.

We got through immigration smoothly and our luggage came pretty fast as well. To our surprise, James's mom was waiting for us at the gate, and it was a very happy reunion. Rini was shy only for a little bit, and warmed up by the time we arrived to the apartment. Then we just relaxed, and let Rini explore her new environment and get friendly with Grandma and Grandpa.

Here are some pictures I took from last night:

Grandma feeding Rini her dinner: fried rice! YUMM!!!

Playing with Grandma after shower.

First hugs from Grandpa. It took a little time to warm up, since Grandma already had a couple months of Skype on her side.

The night passed by alright: Rini stayed up until about 10 PM, slept until 1AM, stayed up again until 3AM, and has been sleeping with only minor interruptions of feeding since then. Well, I'm off to create several events on Facebook and contact our friends to set up meetings. Updates on our trip here will come whenever I get a quiet morning to myself.