We have our plane tickets! Ever since the military announced large budget rollbacks, almost no one flies commercial anymore. I would say 98% of outgoing families are booked to fly from a military base here In Japan to the commercial airport in Seattle via a government contracted airplane. This means no frills, like fancy in-flight movie screens on the seat backs.
Once we arrive in Seattle, John and I take different routes. He connects through to San Diego, where he'll be attending school and I grab my baggage and re-check into more flights ultimately ending up in Alabama late, late at night. It's going to be a very busy and very tiring couple of days.
Nine more days...
Well, our trip to Niseko was much needed and wonderful! We flew out of Tokyo and into Sapporo and then it was a three hour bus ride (and one rest stop) to our hotel. This picture is of the dining room in our hotel. Breakfast came with our package, lunch was a reasonable $10 a person, but dinner was a whopping $35 a person, totaling nearly $70 for two. We didn't mind though, our days were lazy and we spent a lot of time night skiing. We'd sleep in all day and then get dressed and enjoy the night slopes. We stayed on the slopes so long they finally had to tell us to stop returning to the ski lift. Night skiing was wonderful. We had everything all to ourselves and the weather seemed better at night. At any rate, it was a good way to bookend what has become a very hectic time in our life.
