for some reason when i booked my flights, i 'gave' myself an eight hour wait in narita and about the same in LAX. as awful as it may sound, it really wasn't that bad, especially in narita. they actually have a baby room and hiro had a chance to crawl around and play. in LA, however...

my flight from fukuoka left at 8 am so we all got up early on thursday morning and got to the airport by 6. i had a lot of luggage and yoshi laughed at me; i was not pleased. however, we got to the check-in counter and soon said goodbye. from fukuoka to tokyo we flew on JAL. i really love them. they even had a toy and baby snacks for hiro.

in narita i put my carry on suitcase and jacket at the baggage storage and waited for about four hours (i wasn't allowed to check in until 2 pm *sigh*) we had breakfast at mcdonald's and then had a coffee at starbucks. the baby room was after security so poor hiro spent most of his time in the stroller. after checking in and going through security (where i didn't have to take off my shoes) we went to the baby room and hiro had fun (of course, i got my suitcase and jacket before we went through security!)

our flight from narita to LA was on american. i fly with american because i have miles with them. they don't fly directly to seattle anymore, sadly, which is why we had to go to LA. the flight was fine, especially since hiro slept most of the way (cold medicine). in LA i had to change to alaska airlines. they noticed that they didn't tag my baggage right in fukuoka, so i had to go to the alaska counter and have them changed. they noticed that there were two flights to seattle before mine, and both were not full. i couldn't make the first one (about 11 am) but maybe the second (about 2:30 pm) so i had to take my luggage to the other terminal and check in there. a very nice lady with american airlines helped me take all my things over to the other terminal. i actually had a carrier for hiro--who had actually fallen asleep in the stroller--so i put him in it, put the stoller on top of the luggage and the nice lady pushed them for me. i think the idea was for me to take it all myself once we were outside but she very kindly pushed it all the way to the alaska check-in counter.

we got to our gate some time before noon, but had to wait. i was getting hungry and hiro had slept through the second meal on american, but my choices were limited: burger king and starbucks. (it turns out there was a place selling pizza, too, but i didn't see it right away.) i got a whopper jr. for myself and something for hiro--the kid's meal has an option of applesauce and apple juice so i got that for him. we ended up waiting a very long time though: the flight i switched over to had mechanical problems and was delayed until 8 pm. thankfully i was still on my original flight, though my luggage was on the earlier flight. in seattle i had to arrange to have the luggage sent to my parents house.