DAY 1: IT'S 8PM AND IT'S BEDTIME

YAY! we are in japan!!! and we had such a great time flying with ANA!!!

here is a recap of our travels:

at chicago airport

our friend sara HIGHLY recommended garrett's "chicago mix" popcorn to us (she had it while in downtown chicago), and luckily there was a kiosk at the airport! we got it, and i gotta say...it's AMAZING. it's cheddar popcorn mixed with caramel popcorn, and it's the perfect mix of salty/sweet. 

here we are at our gate! 

the ANA stewardesses looked so nice! looks like they were having a meeting before we boarded the plane

OH! and when we checked-in, we were given a special gift from ANA! :D we were so surprised! 

luggage tags and a cute compass that pops out into a clock when you open it! THANK YOU SO MUCH, ANA!!! we really appreciate all your wonderful generosity and kindness!

here is our plane! 

and us waiting to take off :) as you can see, we are SUPER excited!

looking around while waiting to take off...everything looked so nice

on our way to japan! i love this shot! i thought the big red dot on the wing looked so cool

each seat has it's own screen with a large selection of movies, music, games, etc.

and they gave us hot towels to wash our hands with before the meals :)

snack time! rice crackers! yummy!

first meal: SO. GOOD.

chicken teriyaki donburi, miso soup, seaweed salad, fruit, and cold soba:

and they gave us ice cream for dessert! yes, that is HAAGEN-DAZS!

i wanted to show this too! it's hard to tell from this photo (taking a picture of the screen doesn't look as good through a camera) but there is a CAMERA on the bottom of the plane! so you can watch what's under you as you fly! SO COOL!

 okay back to the awesome food hahaha ;)

you can also order other food if you wish. here is part of the menu:

and the controller for your tv, has a credit card slot on it! so i guess you can just charge it that way!

getting closer to landing, we got another meal :)

an AWESOME sandwich that i absolutely loved (it was like a mix of basil, tomato, cheese, and really good dressing), fruit, salad, and yogurt :)

and the wonderful stewardesses were ALWAYS offering drinks throughout the whole flight. juice, tea, coffee...anything! so nice. here is our coffee!

two hours to go! SO CLOSE!

and HELLOOOOO JAPAN! :D

customs were SUPER fast, which was great because we wanted to get to the post office before they closed at 4pm so we could exchange our international postal money order for some yen :) then we got the suica/NEX deal from JR, and hopped on to head to shinjuku!

lovely scenery...

once we got to our hotel, we immediately wanted to go to the 7-11 behind it! 7-11s in japan are WAY better than in the states. they have actual food! we stocked up on a few things, and got these yummy sandwiches for dinner since we were a little hungry. 

YUM. tonkatsu sandwich? YES PLEASE ;) and these are so cheap too! fantastic :)

anyway, yeah, it's only 8pm here, but we are SO TIRED because it's like 7am "our time" back home! we only slept for about an hour or two on the flight because we didn't want to miss anything fun! hahaha...we're so torn because we want to go out and walk around, but our bodies are sleepy! well, good thing we have 3 weeks here in japan! :D lots of time to explore!

THANK YOU AGAIN ANA FOR HAVING THIS WONDERFUL CONTEST THAT GAVE US THE OPPORTUNITY TO COME TO JAPAN! we seriously cannot thank you enough! and we had a WONDERFUL flight with you! :D 

thank you! thank you! and goodnight! haha ;) 

MEGABUS TO CHICAGO!

really short one, but i wanted to blog about the megabus!

our ANA flight is a direct flight from chicago to narita (tokyo), and we needed to get to chicago somehow. so, we decided to try the megabus! and i gotta say, it's pretty cool!

we got picked up on west prospect in cleveland at 5:30pm, and off we went!

first it goes to toledo (and picks up more people/drops people off), then we had a brief 25 min rest stop somewhere along the way, and 6.5 hours later, we were in chicago!

the seats are nice, and we were on a double-decker bus! we sat on the lower level though. everyone pretty much just kept to themselves, and it was a nice ride. we watched 2 movies on my laptop to keep us busy.

oh, and the best part? for the BOTH of us to go from cleveland to chicago, it was only a total of $10.50!!!!!!!!!! and the bus has free wifi! although, it goes in and out quite a bit haha (more out than in), but i seriously cannot complain. the tickets were SO. CHEAP. just amazing.

we arrived in chicago and immediately took a taxi to our hotel for the night. we just got a cheapie hotel ($35/night) since we knew we would be arriving late, and leaving early thursday morning to get to the airport at around 8am.

just a quick one to tell people about the megabus if they didn't know already! i promise things will get much more interesting once we get to japan, and there will be way more photos haha...this is just the boring part :\

tomorrow is our flight! YAY!!!

PACKING UP AND ONE UNHAPPY SIAMESE (AGAIN)

poor kahlua...

if it were up to him, i would have not won this trip! he always gets SO upset when he sees me packing up our luggage, but at least it lets him know we will be gone for longer than a day. his poor, broken heart.

anyway! i can't think about it too much right now because i will get sad!

packing this time for 3 weeks in japan is similar to last time, but also very different. different because we are bringing WAY. LESS. STUFF. we packed WAY too many things last time! too many clothes, too much bathroom stuff, etc!

my goal: to get everything to fit inside our tiniest rolley suitcase:

we have 3 rolley suitcases, a duffel bag, and 2 backpacks. the duffel bag and rolley suitcases all "nest" inside each other. my goal is to get everything to fit inside that smallest rolley inside, so that we only have one suitcase and 2 backpacks for the trip there, and everything will "un-nest" while we're in japan, and we'll have way more luggage for the trip home, aka, lots of room to bring back souvenirs ;)

PACKING:

#1 tip for packing: ROLL YOUR CLOTHES.

this saves HEAPES of space in your luggage. just lay them all out on top of each other, and roll them up like a burrito. genius.

this time, we are only bringing 8 shirts each, and doing laundry twice while there (our hotel and townhouse have laundry facilities). last time we brought like 21 shirts each, and obviously never did laundry. clothes took up SO much space, so i'm excited about all the extra room we should hopefully have!

next is bathroom stuff. i have no idea how much stuff we brought last time, but it was ridiculous. i worried about every single possible scenario, and brought just about everything "just in case".

not this time.

it is going to be hot and humid as heck while in japan this time, so i have significantly decreased the amount of makeuep i'm bringing. i literally have a suitcase of makeup, but i'm only bringing these items with me this time:

face makeup, blush, eyeliner, and mascara. two tiny eyeshadows (brown & white) in case i feel like being fancy haha...i will sweat it all off anyway, so i'm not bringing much. while there, i'll probably not even wear the face makeup, and just wear the eyeliner and mascara, but the face makeup is small, so it's no biggie. oh, and the mascara is WATERPROOF. again, i'll be a hot, humid, and sweaty jacqui while walking around...gotta be prepared. don't want to look like the raccoon foreigner.

as for other bathroom supplies, we're really not bringing much! last time i think i even brought shampoo, and conditioner because i had no idea what to expect. THE HOTELS HAVE THESE THINGS. i figured they would last time too, but i was all in "what-if" scenario mode and brought everything "just in case". we didn't even use a quarter of the stuff we packed last time, so it's not coming this time!

backpacks are pretty simple. we're just bringing random things to do on the flight (my 3DS, books, laptop, camera for photos/video, and squishy pillows for easy sleeping. yeah i know ANA will have pillows, but these ones are nice because they form to your neck perfectly and i'd like to be able to fall asleep for as much of the flight as possible to "time travel" to japan (12 hour flight).

we're SUPER excited to fly with ANA though, and we want to be awake for the meals! they look so yummy and fancy!!!

::::droooool::::

back to packing! well, that's actually pretty much it! i mostly just wanted to do a simple blog letting people know that you don't have to over think every little thing! if you forget something, chances are, japan will have it for you! so just pack your "must-haves" and don't be like me the first time and think of all the "what-if's"! you will have a lot more space for awesome souvenir memories this way :)

so, did i make my goal of fitting everything in the smallest rolley?

nope hahaha...i prooooobably could have done it. i still had some extra room in there, but rather than squishing it all in, i figured just put it into 2. so, the medium rolley is inside the large rolley, and then the smallest rolley is used for leftover stuff. still SO much room for bringing stuff back because our largest rolley isn't being used yet as a "suitcase", so it will be great for the way back :) 

okay, it's 1:45am, and i should try to get some sleep i guess...too excited to sleep though! bus to chicago tomorrow, then flight to japan on thursday morning! i will update wednesday night about our megabus trip if we have internet in our chicago hotel. if we don't you won't hear from me for a few days!

さよなら！

sayonara!