The LONG ride over

This big fat 747 left on Sunday March 5th at 11:30 am from San Francisco to Tokyo. Hallelujah, I got an upgrade to business class where the seat lay almost completely horizontal!! So 11 hours, several glasses of wine, 3 movies, two meals, and not much sleep later I arrived in Tokyo. By this time it's 1am for me, I'm pretty groggy but I stumble me way to my connection to discover the bad news, no upgrade. What! No upgrade? This can't be happening... By now I'm a business class snob, or at least I want to be. Oh well, I figure as tired as I am, and after I pop the Tylenol PM my mother told me to take, I'll just pass out no matter how small the seat, right? WRONG! While taking the sleeping pill did make me drool and see double, it did not get me to sleep. So I spent the next 7.5 hours in a semi comatose state, cursing the genetics which made my 5'10" frame have to twist like a pretzel in the seat. However, by some miracle I did survive and arrived in Singapore. I managed to find Susan in the baggage area. While you might think me quite a detective to locate a person I had never met, I have to admit it was easy to identify the only 6 foot tall, blonde, American in the airport!

Speaking of luggage, the amount between the two of us was ridiculous. Susan had two huge bags and a big carry on. I had one huge suitcase, a big carry on, and my hard sided bike case. Yes, I brought my bike, are you kidding? There's going to be some great riding in Melbourne!

We had told Cheng that we could get ourselves to the hotel and that he did not need to make arrangements to pick us up. After all, we are big girls. And in the land of the not so tall... I mean BIG! Anyway, we head out and look who's there... Cheng and Kendra! I was actually really nice that he met us, and he brought a driver who had a very large van. As Cheng put it, " I thought 2 women traveling for 4 months would have a lot of luggage" and he was right.

My first impression of the country when I stepped out side was only about the weather. Here is was midnight, and it was easily 85 degrees with a gazillion humidity! We're talking instant sweat bath. When we got settled in at the hotel I checked my watch and realized that while it was 2am on March the 7th, it was 9:30 am March the 6th. I had been on the road for 24.5 hours!