Pre-Vietnam: Off to a Rough Start

So, I really took my time packing to go to Vietnam. I literally was still packing all the way up until the Taxi came to take us to the airport!

My flight to Vietnam was on May 27th, 2010 at 10:50 AM. My mom thought that our flight was at 10:00 AM so we had a Taxi come and pick us up at 6:00 AM. The 27th...that's right...the opening night of Sex and the City 2! I didn't want to have to wait to come back to the states to watch it so I went to the midnight showing of the movie. Big mistake, cause the movie wasn't even that great! So I got out of the theaters around 3 AM and went straight home to pack.

Tim had ordered a Taxi online a couple of days in advance and made sure that a van would be picking us up since we had a total of nine suitcases (6 extra large ones)! The taxi that showed up at my house was a small rinky dink one. We started panicking but the driver managed to shove 7 of the suitcases in the trunk and we had to put two suitcases in the backseat with me and my mom. That was a very uncomfortable ride to the airport!

We get to the airport and the Taxi driver drops us off at Continental. We get out and try to find the check-in station and was nowhere to be found because he didn't drop us off at Continental INTERNATIONAL! We realize that we have to take the tram to a different section of Bush Airport. Annoying, I know!

Check in goes smoothly and we get to our gate at around 7:20 AM and realize that my mom got us there an extra hour early. So Tim and I decided make it our goal to poop before our long flight. We didn't pack any of our cell phones cause we didn't want to have to worry about losing it overseas so we make a deal to go into the respective gender restrooms and count to 500 seconds. Once 500 seconds passed...we agreed that we'd meet each other in front of the restrooms to ensure that we didn't lose one another. We did this about...4 times (I pooped 3 of the times while Tim pooped zero of the times) till we decided to go back to the terminal and eat breakfast. After breakfast it was about 9:00 AM so we agreed to take a nap. They started boarding us at 10 AM. I have never been on such a large plane so it was an exciting experience for me! Continental Airlines International is freaking legit! The seats are comfortable, cushioned, spacious, and the leg room is fantastic! The TV screens in front of each seat are huge, touch screen, filled with games/movies/TV shows, etc. keeping me entertained for hours! Now...to the food...the food was so AMAZZZZZZING! They fed us 3 meals and we had plenty of snacks and drinks to keep us happy and full the whole trip. Honestly, I ate more on the plane ride than I ever have in a single day of my life! What's crazy is...I was traveling with daylight so I had bright daylight for almost 13 hours straight. The sun light literally did not change at all. It was so surreal.

After 13 hours of bliss...we get to Japan for our connecting flight. We get off the Continental plane and check into Japan Airlines. It was so chaotic...it took them almost 30 minutes to get us seats and what's worse is that they separated Tim from me and my mom. It was really weird because the lady helping us looked took Tim's passport, made a phone call, stayed on the phone for about 15 minutes (throwing a lot of "Americano" into the conversation), and then informed us that there were no more 3 seaters available and would be putting Tim in the exit row away from us. Tim was convinced that he was the only one reliable enough to help all the Asians in a serious plane crisis and that was why he was called upon to be the exit row assistant. LOL.

We get to our gate and my bratty mom decides that she's incredibly thirsty and hinting to us that she wants a drink. The Japan airport is incredibly large, has difficult signs to decipher, and the few workers that can speak English have such a thick accent that you have to get them to repeat their statements almost 5 times until you can make out what they're saying. Tim and I walked around for a long time trying to find drinks to buy and we realized that we had to convert our money to yen. The money conversion station is located way way way WAY WAY WAY WAY far away from where our terminal was. We finally got a drink 30 minutes later.

An hour before departure, the airport workers started walking around collecting large carry-ons as if there wasn't enough room on the plane. We had to stick all 3 of our bags under our seat so they wouldn't see them. When they finished, people started lining up. We looked at each other like "um are they gonna call our numbers?" By the time we stood up and asked, the entire plane had already lined up. When asked, the airport worker told us that they are not boarding by number... So the whole boarding process took forever because we had to wait for each row to put up their bags and take their seat.

On board, it was a much different experience than Continental International. The flight attendants kept telling me to put my seat in the upright position and although each seat had a personal TV, it didn't work, so it was useless. This was the most uncomfortable flight I've ever been on and it lasted 6 hours. To top it all off, the seats were tiny and the food was terrible. When we finally arrived, we had to wait an hour at baggage claim because there were so many boxes on the carousel.