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So, I am in Seattle
And I guess I'm jet-lagged because it's 1am and I don't want to sleep (but at 9pm I couldn't hold my head up)
So, yeah, slept from about 3am to 8am in Japan, finished packing, managed to shut off things around the house, took my luggage down to Akabane station in the rain, which sucked... got on the cheapo Keisei line to the airport. They have a new spiffy platform at Nippori, it was kinda nice to see.
Got to the airport, checked in, checked my big bag, wandered off to buy some omiyage, had some final sushi, etc. (I made a point of speaking Japanese everywhere still, which may have been funny. Mostly when at the one souvenir shop the lady looked at my white face and said "The total is seventeen hundred eightyfive yen," and I completely didn't hear it because I was listening for Japanese, so I said in Japanese, "What? I didn't catch that", they repeated it in Japanese, I was like "Oh," started counting out change, "I haven't heard English in so long I wasn't listening for it.")
Security was no problem at the normal counter. But, the flight was delayed a tiny bit, and then they also had to do a SECOND security check before getting on the plane -- looking through people's carry-on luggage and also frisking everyone. I had no problem there either, it was just a little annoying. Then by the time I got on the plane there was no room for my bag and I had to scramble for that.
The flight itself wasn't too bad. I had an aisle seat. The movie selection mostly sucked, I watched The Informant, which was amusing in a way, mostly the inner thoughts of Whitacre any time anything else was going on. He'd be listening to FBI agents, and the voiceover of his thoughts was about polar bears covering their noses to catch seals. After that I watched This Is It, which was kinda lame on a tiny screen but you could kind of mostly just listen to it anyway. I fell asleep during it, around the same point I fell asleep when I saw it in the theaters too, I think. Woke up as it was ending, oops, went back to sleep, woke up when it was around the same point on the next run, watched the end. Then watched the end of Slumdog Millionaire, which was on another channel. Then gave up and mostly waited for the flight to end.
Seattle had a ridiculously long line at the customs desk, and then I also had to wait quite a while for my checked bag to show up -- long enough I was almost worried it wasn't coming. I finally got my stuff, got out of there, took the train to the main terminal to get my bag again, and I got pounced by Mike, who had randomly decided to come pick me up from the airport. That was a hell of a surprise, although I was joking about being disappointed I wouldn't get to ride the new light rail.
So, he gave me a ride home. We got to the house here in Ballard and it turns out the key I forgot the purpose for on my keychain IS infact the key to this house, so yay. Went in, and was greeted by two dogs -- Watson, and a very cute dog I'd never seen before but assumed had to belong to Zach's fiancee Jess (who I also had never met). I was like "Hey guys, where's Sherlock?" but all they did was bark and sniff me as a response.
Mike offered to help me run a few errands, so we went to the T-mobile store and I got set up with a phone number and whatnot for my phone! (It's posted friends-only.) I signed up for a month of "talk+text+web", so theoretically my phone should have internets on it again like the old days, though it doesn't seem to work yet, I'm trying to figure out how long to wait before I get paranoid and bug them. (They said "2 to 48 hours".)
Then onwards to lunch. My idea was Pagliacci's right by there, but it opens at 4pm :( Oops. So we went to Northgate and I got Chipotle! Hooray! I kind of wondered how long I'd be in the country before going there.
Back here after that, we hung out for a bit talking about some puzzle stuff. Zach and Jess came home relatively early -- and it turns out Zach brought Sherlock to work with him. And Jess's dog is named Chompers. Mike had to go back to the other side of the lake, so he left after that.
Z&J made dinner and I walked to Bartell's to get some stuff like shampoo and toothpaste (which I was just about out of in Japan and no point in checking liquids anyway). Damn, that stuff got expensive. Or maybe it's just Bartell's. Tomorrow I'm gonna walk to Safeway and maybe Fred Meyer and look around to get an idea of how much stuff costs.
Anyway, after dinner and me giving people presents and yatsuhashi and stuff, I tried to stay awake until Carl came home, but eventually laid down around 9pm and conked out. I woke up when Carl did finally come home around 10:30-11pm or so (long day at work) and gave him a big stack of presents from Japan (seriously, I probably had more stuff for him than for anyone, but on the other hand he's also letting me crash in his office for such a long time and even cleaned it up really great for me!)
So we stayed up talking a bit, he went upstairs to go to sleep, and now.. I can't seem to get back to sleep, despite how zonked I was at 9pm. Oh well. We'll see what happens, I guess.
So, yeah, slept from about 3am to 8am in Japan, finished packing, managed to shut off things around the house, took my luggage down to Akabane station in the rain, which sucked... got on the cheapo Keisei line to the airport. They have a new spiffy platform at Nippori, it was kinda nice to see.
Got to the airport, checked in, checked my big bag, wandered off to buy some omiyage, had some final sushi, etc. (I made a point of speaking Japanese everywhere still, which may have been funny. Mostly when at the one souvenir shop the lady looked at my white face and said "The total is seventeen hundred eightyfive yen," and I completely didn't hear it because I was listening for Japanese, so I said in Japanese, "What? I didn't catch that", they repeated it in Japanese, I was like "Oh," started counting out change, "I haven't heard English in so long I wasn't listening for it.")
Security was no problem at the normal counter. But, the flight was delayed a tiny bit, and then they also had to do a SECOND security check before getting on the plane -- looking through people's carry-on luggage and also frisking everyone. I had no problem there either, it was just a little annoying. Then by the time I got on the plane there was no room for my bag and I had to scramble for that.
The flight itself wasn't too bad. I had an aisle seat. The movie selection mostly sucked, I watched The Informant, which was amusing in a way, mostly the inner thoughts of Whitacre any time anything else was going on. He'd be listening to FBI agents, and the voiceover of his thoughts was about polar bears covering their noses to catch seals. After that I watched This Is It, which was kinda lame on a tiny screen but you could kind of mostly just listen to it anyway. I fell asleep during it, around the same point I fell asleep when I saw it in the theaters too, I think. Woke up as it was ending, oops, went back to sleep, woke up when it was around the same point on the next run, watched the end. Then watched the end of Slumdog Millionaire, which was on another channel. Then gave up and mostly waited for the flight to end.
Seattle had a ridiculously long line at the customs desk, and then I also had to wait quite a while for my checked bag to show up -- long enough I was almost worried it wasn't coming. I finally got my stuff, got out of there, took the train to the main terminal to get my bag again, and I got pounced by Mike, who had randomly decided to come pick me up from the airport. That was a hell of a surprise, although I was joking about being disappointed I wouldn't get to ride the new light rail.
So, he gave me a ride home. We got to the house here in Ballard and it turns out the key I forgot the purpose for on my keychain IS infact the key to this house, so yay. Went in, and was greeted by two dogs -- Watson, and a very cute dog I'd never seen before but assumed had to belong to Zach's fiancee Jess (who I also had never met). I was like "Hey guys, where's Sherlock?" but all they did was bark and sniff me as a response.
Mike offered to help me run a few errands, so we went to the T-mobile store and I got set up with a phone number and whatnot for my phone! (It's posted friends-only.) I signed up for a month of "talk+text+web", so theoretically my phone should have internets on it again like the old days, though it doesn't seem to work yet, I'm trying to figure out how long to wait before I get paranoid and bug them. (They said "2 to 48 hours".)
Then onwards to lunch. My idea was Pagliacci's right by there, but it opens at 4pm :( Oops. So we went to Northgate and I got Chipotle! Hooray! I kind of wondered how long I'd be in the country before going there.
Back here after that, we hung out for a bit talking about some puzzle stuff. Zach and Jess came home relatively early -- and it turns out Zach brought Sherlock to work with him. And Jess's dog is named Chompers. Mike had to go back to the other side of the lake, so he left after that.
Z&J made dinner and I walked to Bartell's to get some stuff like shampoo and toothpaste (which I was just about out of in Japan and no point in checking liquids anyway). Damn, that stuff got expensive. Or maybe it's just Bartell's. Tomorrow I'm gonna walk to Safeway and maybe Fred Meyer and look around to get an idea of how much stuff costs.
Anyway, after dinner and me giving people presents and yatsuhashi and stuff, I tried to stay awake until Carl came home, but eventually laid down around 9pm and conked out. I woke up when Carl did finally come home around 10:30-11pm or so (long day at work) and gave him a big stack of presents from Japan (seriously, I probably had more stuff for him than for anyone, but on the other hand he's also letting me crash in his office for such a long time and even cleaned it up really great for me!)
So we stayed up talking a bit, he went upstairs to go to sleep, and now.. I can't seem to get back to sleep, despite how zonked I was at 9pm. Oh well. We'll see what happens, I guess.
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2) QA isn't really walking distance from here anyway
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