Reid Main

It is 7pm JST as I start writing this article so please forgive any spelling or grammar errors that arise as I have been awake for 20 straight hours now. My body begs for sleep but I gotta deprive it so I can begin the process of setting my clock to Tokyo time.

My alarm woke me at 6am this morning because I am a slave to my Apple Watch and needed to exercise before we headed to the airport. I was going to be on my ass for 11+ hours today so I had to get an hour in on the elliptical to close my move ring and keep the streak alive. 354 straight days baby!

After exercising and showering we caught an Uber to the airport and arrived two hours before our plane was scheduled to board. My brain was a little bit scared showing up for an international flight less than three hours early but those fears were quickly abated when we managed to check our bag and get through security in less than 10 minutes. Thank god for check-in kiosks and TSA Precheck. Seriously, if you are a Canadian citizen sign up for NEXUS or if you are an American citizen sign up for Global Entry. The benefits to your sanity when you are trying to get through security and customs is priceless.

We grabbed some quick breakfast at Joe & the Juice and then made our way to our gate. After a short 45 minute wait, boarding started right on time and was surprisingly painless. People seemed to be much more sane lining up than usual.

On the flight I mostly entertained myself by finishing my book, The Way of Kings. It was a really slow burn but man did it snowball at the end. I've already bought book two in The Stormlight Archive for the flight home. The rest of the flight was filled by watching 30 Rock, Goldeneye and listening to the latest 8-4 Play podcast. Food on the flight was pretty poor. Tasteless noodles for lunch and mushy pancakes for "breakfast" (since my body thought it was 8pm) but hey the mango sorbet was tasty.

We landed in Haneda at 3pm Tokyo time and absolutely breezed through customs. This is my third time going through security and customs at Japanese airports and I have had absolutely no issues thus far. We still had to wait for our checked luggage but in true Japanese fashion the crowds around the luggage belts were well behaved. People were even listening to the "no carts" border around the belt.

We boarded the Tokyo Monorail and headed for Hamamatsuchō where our Airbnb was. We had stayed at this Airbnb before and were again welcomed with open arms. Our host even bought Elsie a cake because he knew we were coming to Japan to celebrate her birthday.

By the time we unpacked our luggage it was 4pm JST which meant we had been up for 17 hours straight. Neither Elsie nor I had the energy to go sightseeing so we turned on the TV and proceeded to watch the last two hours of day 8 of the Kyūshū Basho sumo tournament which was actually really interesting. Even though the matches were mere seconds they were very enthralling.

When the final match of the day ended our bellies finally started to growl so we decided to hit up the same MOS Burger we visited during our first trip. Afterwards, we grabbed some alcohol from the local convenience store and headed back to the Airbnb which brings us to now. Two sake deep and struggling to maintain consciousness to get this article out.

Elsie and I's Instagram accounts to get a real time feed of our time in Japan. Otherwise I will do my absolute best to write one of these articles every night before I pass out.