It was Jacobs dream of visiting Japan, so I did a lot of planning and preparation for this trip. I was able to swing round trip business class (lie-flat) seats, without breaking the bank. [Booked one way tickets. SFO-HND via Hawaiian using a mix of cash and points. We had points from credit card sign on bonus, plus card usage, and during our planning Hawaiian ran an insane deal for purchasing points. While typically not ideal, this was one of those that you don’t miss out on. Then our return trip was ITM-SFO, 100% on points.] Turning left when stepping onto the plane was a dream.

Flying with Jacob is always an adventure. Someone is getting stopped and questioned for something, bags inspected, missing bags, you name it.

We have TSA Pre-Check, it should be smooth, right? When departing SFO, after I went through something in me told me to wait for Jacob. They scan his boarding pass and something is off. I asked what was going on, and one of the staff members who knew we were together had me come back to him. Apparently his boarding pass was scanning an error that his flight did not exist. Did not exist? Odd, given he has a printed boarding pass, we are on the same flight, and I just scanned through fine. I am glad that something in me told me to wait for him because I think showing my boarding pass, might be the only reason they let him through. Rough morning for TSA because we already had to go to another checkpoint because the other one was having technical issues and sending people away.

For the flight there, we flew Hawaiian with a layover in Honolulu. Neither of us have been on a flight longer than 6 hours and I was very nervous. While this layover made the travel day longer, by a lot, it felt like I needed that break to get myself ready for the trip. Total time on a plane was about 15 hours, then around 3hr layover in Honolulu. That ended up longer because of a delay, and then even longer as we sat on the tarmac waiting our turn. We woke up at 430am, flight left around 7am and when we finally landed in Haneda airport, it was after 3:30am Pacific Time. Customs, baggage, getting our Suica card, train to Shibuya Station, getting lost trying to exit the station late at night in the rain (all with tons of construction making it even more confusing) – all that and we didn’t get to the hotel until very late. Time change is a bitch. There is no sugar coating that.

Did I also mention that while these lie-flat seats were comfy, the Pacific is quite turbulent in general and specifically in the Winter. I barely slept 2 hours.

Jacob is quite good with navigation. While I’m not typically, I have been known to pull it together when needed. On this night, Shibuya Station was getting the better of us. At one point I thought we might have to sleep in the station. I absolutely wanted to cry. I feel like we walked back and forth in the same area several times, getting nowhere. We were only about a block or two from our hotel and just across the street, but we couldn’t make sense of google maps, with all of the construction. In the light of day, with some sleep, it was incredibly simple. On this night, Shibuya Station won. We ended up asking directions to get a cab. No we don’t speak that much Japanese but Google Translate does. The cab took us the 2 blocks to our hotel and we were saved. Confused at times, but never did we get lost in a station again.

The day we flew home, we woke in our Ryokan in Arashiyama Kyoto. Showered, took a dip in the outdoor bath, had breakfast, finished packing, and caught the train. It was raining, turned very cold over night, but being so close to the train station, it was a quick walk to the cover of the station. We caught several trains and then the monorail to Osaka Itami Airport. Having shipped most of our luggage to the airport days earlier, our first stop was to pick up our bags and reorganize some of the packing to prep for the flights. Once I started organizing, throwing in our coats, and switching to dry shoes – that is when I realized we left a bottle of Sake in the fridge at the Ryokan.

One thing about traveling to Japan and tax free shopping is that you generally need this checked somewhere, somehow, at the airport. From my research, its best to put your tax free items in your carry on to make this process smoother. If you don’t, then you need to tell the agent that your checked bags have tax free. Itami is a domestic airport. Our flight had a layover in Narita. This was completely domestic travel. So technically, that tax free check would happen in Narita. With all of that, we needed to confirm if our bags would check all the way to our destination or if we would have to get them in Narita and recheck. Of course while doing this, we discover something was wrong with Jacobs ticket and the machine wouldn’t print his boarding pass. This is the one time that the language barrier was a true challenge. It was a struggle to get everything communicated properly and someone to get us to the right person. In the end we have no idea what was wrong with his ticket, our bags checked all the way to our final destination, and no one cared to check anything with our tax free purchases.

Travel adventures continue as our flight out of Osaka was delayed. We had a layover of 1hr and 40 min in Narita. Which is typically plenty of time, except when your flight is delayed. It gets even worse when its delayed some more, and then you sit on the tarmac for a bit while you wait your turn. Of course the weather is bad and the plane bounced a bit on landing. I actually thought we might go back up and go around to try landing again, thankfully that didn’t happen. Things continued to get worse when we went to deboard. We were 20 gates away from where our next flight departed, and we had 20 minutes to catch our connecting flight. Then we realize that we are boarding a bus to take us to a different gate, much farther away from where we need to be. The truth is, they will hold the plane for you, so we are totally OK. I have never seen anything like this in the US before. As we were running to catch our plane, sumimasen every 2ft running through the crowds, I pass a flight attendant walking through the terminal asking people in the crowd if they are on the flight to SFO. I finally make it on, panting, then a sweet flight attendant comes to comfort me. It was at least 10 more minutes, probably closer to 20, when they shut the doors because they were waiting for many more passengers. People who probably weren’t running like us and were banking on them holding the plane for them. I know you hear this happening, but again, I’ve never seen it in the states, so I just didn’t believe it. The day honestly just got longer because then the flight took longer due to weather and we had to circle SFO for nearly an hour because high winds made landing unsafe.

These flights home were with JAL, and while I have heard nothing but wonderful things about travelling with them, I think Hawaiian won this one for me. The JAL service, was beyond expectations. The attention and care really felt like business class. While some of the Hawaiian attendants were great, one was actually rude. Unfortunately it happened close to the start of the trip and put a bad taste in my mouth. The food with both flights was good but JAL was delicious. The Hawaiian flight didn’t have a divider between our seats (which I appreciate given I wasn’t flying solo) and had way more storage than JAL. JAL had the big screens with lots of great options. With Hawaiian you can use their tablets. Which is great if that matters to you. For me, I usually fly with my own device and care more about wifi. Wifi on Hawaiian worked perfectly and JAL had none, the entire 9+ hour flight. Sounds like JAL might win between service and food, right? Well the whole reason for a business class seat, for me, is the lie-flat for comfort and sleeping. Honestly, the Hawaiian seat was just so much more comfortable. With all the turbulence, sleep was so challenging, and my comfort was most important.