Departure

Bright and early Thursday morning at PDX airport. . . Marina and Amanda were on our flight. The transit was long, but relatively smooth. I ate fast-food poutine at the Vancouver airport *shout out, Helen Hedberg!*

Everything about the Japanese flights was pretty adorable -- I tried to get a little video clip of the safety video, which was emceed and enacted by these little cartoon avatars who would make animaeish facial expressions when, say, the person in front of them put their seat back abruptly, or tripped over bags left in the aisle. Totemo kawaii desu nee! Also, the stewardesses were all very cute, with these puffy silken neck scarves and JAL aprons of cotton fabric enprinted with fantastical old-fashioned hot air balloon flight machines.

Aaron and I sat next to a sweet 6-year-old and her mother on the 10+ hour flight from Vancouver to Tokyo. The girl, whose name was Erika, goes to a French-immersion school in Vancouver, but is Japanese (she and her mom were flying to visit family) and also speaks English. Smart girl! She shared her Japanese snacks with us on the plane, and we played some video games on the in-flight entertainment screen.