The Aerovac Adventure Begins

Things started off way too smoothly. No last minute rush for passport stamps, no vanishing e-tickets. We left the house with enough time to hit Subway for lunch on our way down to the airport. Cliff dropped us off, we checked our luggage and got our boarding passes while Cliff waited out front for our call to give him the green light, just in case.



Our flight left on time, it was a beautiful day, Jake got a window seat...everything was great.



About half way through the flight, we decided to bust into the snacks we brought. Altitude turns bags of umeboshi chips into Mylar balloons. We debated, but ultimately decided to be mature and not pop them for our own entertainment.



This was a ¥100 Store find. Had no idea what it was, but it had potential.



It's like a Cheeto cheeseball, only dipped in chocolate instead of covered in cheese powder. Yum.



We arrived at Tokyo Narita with a pretty decent sized layover. Five hours. So, we checked in for our flight and just walked around to see what we could see. The airport seemed more crowded than usual.
(Love this..."Sorry to make you so amazed." Hehe.)



We debated...oxygen bar? Reflexology?



Or Curry? Yeah...that's what I'M talkin' about.



We found a drug store where we could purchase a neck pillow for Jake for the long flight. Again, we boarded without a hitch...and the flight was only about half full (most likely due to the disasters in Japan putting a damper on vacation travel to Hawaii), which meant we each had a row to ourselves. I actually got some sleep, which was a very good thing, because we arrived in Honolulu at 7 AM local time.

Suddenly, I realized I forgot to print off the reservation confirmation for our rental car. I couldn't even remember what company I had booked it through. I looked at the directory for a business center or something like it, and saw the USO. I had forgotten about the USO. They'd be able to help me. I walked in and sure enough, they had some computers we could use and only charged $0.10 per page to print.

I have to say, the man at the counter was the absolute rudest, most crotchety, miserable human being I have encountered in my memory. I have no idea why he is working there. Community service as part of his parole? I can't understand why you would continue to work/volunteer some place that makes you so miserable unless you were being forced to. As I was looking up my reservation to print, I could hear someone else in the back office (manager?) on the phone just griping and complaining about some incident she'd had with a supervisor or co-worker or something. She just went on and on and sounded petty and ridiculous. Both of these situations were so contrary to what I would typically associate with the USO. Isn't it supposed to be a "feel good" kind of organization, all about serving the troops? I couldn't get out of there fast enough (but thanks for the ten cent copy)!



We were able to board the right rental car shuttle, which took us to the Advantage lot, where we were given a free upgrade to a Nissan Altima...a double bonus considering the awesome Priceline rate we got.



Our first coconut palm sighting.



By this time, it was just after 8 AM. Hotel check in time was 3 PM. Perfect opportunity to take in some sights. Since we had no idea how long we'll have here, we thought we'd better hit Jake's number one priority...Pearl Harbor. Stay tuned.