So, I finally made it to Japan! After a 13 hour flight and another 1.5 hour flight, I made it to Osaka around 7pm, Thursday (which is 5am Thursday for yall) with no major traveling issues! Awesome! That might be a first.

ANDDDDD here`s the best part… I got bumped to FIRST class for my second flight!!! I`m not entirely sure how that happened. But essentially, when I got to Tokyo, after I had gone through customs and was having to recheck my luggage for my 2nd flight, these 2 really nice Japanese girls were there to check people in that had connecting flights… I showed the one girl my ticket which had printed back in Houston when I printed my boarding pass for the first flight. She took it, took my baggage, and then said hang on a second. She gave my ticket to the other girl, who was working on the computre, and told me `the other airline lady will give you ticket`. I waited patiently, but I didn:t know what they were doing. After a few minutes, the one on the computer looked at me and smiled… she said something in Japanese to the other girl, who also smiled, and then one asked how old I was. I stood there a while longer, and then she gave me a new boarding pass for my flight. I said thanks and went on my way. I thought the whole thing had been a little weirder than most of my previous baggage-checking, flight confirming, seat changing experiences, especially the question regarding my age, but I didn:t think much of it and went on my way.

So, by the time I`n supposed to board the plane, I am EXHAUSTED. It`s around 3:30am Houston time, and I:ve been on planes and in airports for the past 15ish hours. As I walked down the aisle to find my seat, I was being really jealous of the people who get the ginormous seats that I was passing.  As I neared row 16, we were still in the big seat section. 13. Big seats. 14. Big seats. `Wow, I bet 16 must be the first row in economy` I thought to myself, never even having a hope that 16 would be a first class row… So I get to row 15. Still big seats. I look, and theres one more row left in the section… 16! Was I really going to be enjoying this luxury?! No, there:s no way. It can:t be true. I must have counted wrong, or read wrong, or maybe there:s 2 row 16s. I looked around suspiciously. I double checked my assigned ticket seat as well as the number of the seat I was sitting in. And I double checked again. And even a third and fourth time. I looked at the stewardess, making eye contact… surely she was going to shoo me out or something. But apparently, I was sitting in first class!!!! What!

And get this! MY SEAT TURNED INTO A BED! No joke!!! It was AWESOME. I slept the entire flight. Not that it was long. But I didn:t even wake up when they came by for drinks. It was beautiful. I did feel slightly … scratch that… VERY out of place. Here`s me, with my hiking backpack… I`m dressed decently, but I have spent the last 13 hours on another flight. And let`s add the fact that some people still mistake me for being 17. So there I am, sitting in first class, surrounded by no one younger than 40, all in business wear and carrying rather professional looking luggage. But it was amazing. Can my seat turn into a bed everytime I fly somewhere? Wow.

Soooo anyway! Enough about my flight.

My friend Yukiko met me at the Osaka airport, and we took a taxi to where she lives. Tomorrow she:s taking me to explore the downtown of Osaka and also Osaka Castle and whatever else she had in mind! The next 2 days, (I:ve lost track of whad day it is) we:re going to Kyoto… a really traditional town that;s pretty close by.

I can:t believe I:m actually in Japan. And I forgot how much I LOVE bowing every time you say `thanks` to someone (which is one of the 2 Japanese words I currently know)… I bowed so much in Korea, it took me nearly 2 months to get only 2 weeks of bowing out of my system once I was back in the US. Ohhh and I:m excited to get some really good sushi. I think we:re going to a conveyor-belt-sushi restaurant tomorrow too!!!! Cool!