Day 1 -- Portland, Oregon to Tokyo, Japan

So, I'll start at the beginning of the day--12 midnight. Margaret and I decided to go out for my last night in town and had a great time downtown. I got home around 3:30am and finished...er...began packing. I had been trying to get stuff ready for a while and had a pile of stuff that I needed to remember, but I hadn't even gotten my suitcase out yet. Finally got to bed about 7:30am and was up again at 10:00am to head to the airport for our 12:30pm flight. On the way to the airport, I remember saying something about the fact that I never pack extra clothes in my carry-on because, the way I figure, I'm wearing clothes and can get new stuff if I need it (* this info is unimportant now, but relevant later). My carry-on is reserved for the essentials: medicine, toothbrush, water, snack food, book, ipod, camera, etc Upon arriving at the airport at 11:00ish, we found out that our flight had been delayed until 1:45pm due to an ice storm in Tokyo causing the incoming plane to leave late and the need to check some equipment when it landed. Daniel and I took the time to grab some food, do some airport browsing, do some people watching (local news guy Paul Lindman was there) and just chill out. When 1:45 rolled around and we weren't on the plane yet, I decided to send Mom & Dad an email from my phone letting them know we might miss our connection in Tokyo/ Narita (way too early in China to just call). The only updates we had were several "we'll be boarding in about 10 minutes" and the score from the Broncos-Steelers game (Broncos lost--doh!). We finally boarded the plane about 2:00pm and left about a half hour later. The two and a half hours of sleep I got (and the four hours the night before from Daniel's wild birthday bash) finally caught up to me and I dozed off. I slept intermittently about as well as could be expected for being on a plane with 4 toddlers/ babies under the age of 2 within 2 rows in front or behind us. We were served snacks (I miss the plain old peanuts that everyone used to serve!) and dinner on the plane. I didn't request vegetarian this time--decided to just risk it and see what they brought (I'm not a vegetarian, but I avoid beef and pork and am allergic to shellfish, so sometimes the veggie meals are just easier). It was chicken with a side of shrimp, a poor excuse for a salad, and a rock hard dinner roll. Needless to say, my dinner was small and I looked forward to the fruit breakfast we would have closer to the end of our ten and a half hour flight.