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Tokyo Day 1 – Off we go

Tokyo Day 1 – Off we go

By on Jan 31, 2018 in Tokyo, Japan (2018) | 6 comments

The week before (Jan 24) Kaelyn was at the Japanese Embassy in Toronto to submit for Visa application. We were told it would take a week, to come back Jan 31. Since Kaelyn’s modeling contract was for 60 days, and waiting too long would push us into a mid-April arrival (missing a fair number of birthdays), we decided we would leave the afternoon of Jan 31. We booked our plan for Jan 31 on Air Canada leaving at 1:30pm. The same day we were to pick up the visa. Fingers crossed nothing goes wrong. We also decided to bring Tammy with us, so she can experience another culture.

So we started our journey Jan 30 and left Chatham at 7pm and over-night in Toronto vs waking at 5am and making the 3hr drive in potential snow storms or traffic. We had a good sleep and enjoyed a nice breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express in downtown Toronto. At 8am Kaelyn and dad walked the 1km to the Embassy and waited until they opened at 9am. We were the first in line, and picked up the visa no issue. We walked back to the hotel and off we drove to Pearson.

Mom dropped us off at 10:30am and since we checked in online the previous day, we only needed to print our luggage tickets. We dropped off our luggage and headed to security. Within 10 minutes we were waiting at E76 waiting for out flight in 2.5hrs. So much different than Shanghai when we were practically running to the gate.

We were 45minutes late departing because we had to de-ice. Take off was good and Tammy loved it. The flight was 13.5hrs, and no one really slept but me. Tammy gobbled down all her food and watched Home Alone twice. She was so excited to have unlimited tv watching. I tried hard to get some sleep but couldn’t figure out those pillows.

We arrived on schedule and had to make a quick pit stop to the bathroom. OMG, check out those toilets!!!

We passed through customs and picked up our luggage without issue. We bought bus tickets to the hotel CDU (the modelling agency) told us to meet them at. It cost us a total of ¥540 ($1CAD=¥89) for the bus. We headed to bus section 4. It was lightly snowing outside and about 2C. Kaelyn felt it was FREEZING. We had to wait about 25 minutes for us bus. We heard about the line-ups in Japan and saw it right away. When waiting for the bus you had to stand in your line. As the bus picked up those passengers, the next row stepped forward. Everyone was courteous and Tammy got to bow and say ‘arigoto’ (thanks) to the bus attendant.

The girls immediately fell asleep in the bus as we headed to the other terminals for pickups, then off to the hotel.

We called CDU and they picked us up and showed us the agency and dropped us off at our apartment which was only 2min away. We had a little issue trying to get the right house code but called the AirBnb and sorted it out. Our first impression – It was VERY cold. They had left the heaters off. The apartment overall was very nice (and compact – more to come on that).

We messaged mom, had a video chat and fell asleep quickly as Kaelyn had to be at the agency for 10:15am.

 

    6 Comments

  1. Tammy will remember this experience forever. Glad you got there safely. Enjoy!

    • Thanks Nana

  2. Enjoy….great experience for Tammy also

    • Thanks Aunt Pat – yes she is going to learn and experience a lot.

  3. Awe!!’ Loved the video. It was like we were right there with Tammy. It was great to get to feel like we shared that experience with her. I am sure there will be a lot of firsts for her this trip and we want to share in them all

    • You bet!
      She loved the flight.

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