Day 2 -- Tokyo, Japan to Shanghai, China

At some point it became today. You kind of lose track of that when you are traveling across numereous time zones and the international dateline. The time difference between Portland, OR and China is 16 hours (during daylight savings time, 15 hours otherwise). I end up fighting my body trying to think about what time my body thinks it is and what time I want it to feel it is. I've never been good with jetlag. One friend has said that Red Bull Vodka is the way to kick the jetlag--go out and drink a ton of those to stay up, get hammered, and when you wake up the next day, it is no longer jetlag but a mild hangover to recover from. Thus far I have only taken his word on it. We arrived about 2 hours late in Tokyo at 6:16pm local time and were told on the flight that the plane to Shanghai wasn't holding. It was supposed to leave at 5:50pm (plenty of layover if our flight had been on time), but it left at 6:15pm. We waited about 30 minutes at the connection counter, half expecting to stay the night in Tokyo, but found that Northwest Airlines was putting us on a China Air flight departing at 8:55pm, but it was in another terminal and we had to check in there. We decided to take care of the ticket before attempting to reach my parents, which would require buying a phone card with our non-existent Japanese Yen (my cell works most places, but Japan is on a completely different system). After some hassle, we made our way from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2 via bus (and it was way too cold outside by the bus for just the sweatshirt and jeans I was wearing). We figured out where the gate was (at the end of terminal of course) and went to check in at the desk there. Finally found someone who spoke english and would actually help us and learned that we had to go back to a Japan Airlines desk near where we got off of the bus to get our boarding pass. Made our way back there and waited for 45 minutes to get our boarding passes. We were the very last people to get boarding passes for our flight, just 5 minutes before departure time (leave it to us to pick the slowest lines). No one seemed to know if our flight was leaving on time, so we ran for about 5 minutes up the stairs and down the terminal then down the stairs to the gate only to find that they were just beginning to board. Exhausted and stinky (from running and traveling in general), we boarded the plane. I fell asleep within 10 minutes of takeoff, wondering if my parents had any clue where we were or when we would be coming in. On the three and a half hour flight, I was woken up for a choice of "Western" or "Japanese" dinner. Trying to avoid seafood, I went for the Western dinner. I picked around the beef and ate the rice noodles it was served on before promptly passing out again. About 10 minutes before landing, Daniel woke me up again to fill out our customs and entry cards as he was having difficulty staying awake to do it. We landed at 11:20pm. I turned on my cell and texted my Dad, figuring that he was resourceful enough to know where were at. Immediately after sending it, I got a voicemail from him saying he knew what flight we were on and that they would be at the airport to pick us up. We were shuffled quickly through customs to go pick up our bags. Daniel's showed up within the first 5 minutes. Mine, on the other hand, never did. There was a Chinese-American man in the same situation, but with an infant, so I figure my situation isn't really that bad. Called Dad to explain the delay and blamed the bag hold up on the 16 pounds of Tillamook Cheese that they had me pack in it (I don't really think that's what it was, but we are worried about it making it easily through customs). Had to fill out some paperwork and a claim forms before I was allowed to leave. We met my parents (I was more than easy to spot with my "radically ruby red" hair--didn't turn out quite the color I intended--hopefully it will fade soon) and called the driver to take us to Suzhou.