Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!

And we’re over the Pacific Ocean!!!

The plane has Starlink!!!

Yay Elon!!!!

So we got up really early this morning and drove down to the airport, all…  eight of us.  We got through security and flew to LAX.  We were really tired but it was a pretty ordinary flight.  We landed and caught up with Emiko and family (I haven’t seen them for a while!) Then we found Robert…  and went through a door and right to the charter plane!!! No lines!!!

It’s amazing!!!  It’s got plush seats and wooden trim and nice bathrooms and even a selection of snacks we can put in the microwave!!!  There’s no dinner service of course but this is almost as good!!!  David loves all the snacks!!!  It’s not a huge plane, just a standard corporate jet, but still very nice compared to the cattle haulers we were in going to LAX.

The pilots are really nice, they even let David in the cockpit to see what they’re doing!!!  But he was told if he touches anything, he’s in big, big trouble.  He didn’t touch anything.  Even he knows when it’s a good idea to listen to adults.  Because it’s such a long flight, the pilots are taking turns flying, and one came out and chatted with us for a while before taking a nap.  He’s really nice and explained a lot about how planes work!  It’s fascinating!!!

I asked him why pilots say “uh” all the time when doing the in cabin announcements.  He laughed and said that there’s usually a lot of stuff going on in the cockpit when it’s time to land and their attention is on many things other than just talking to the passengers.  You know, putting down the landing gear, making sure we are aimed at the runway, that kind of thing.  I’m glad they are!!!

We’re arriving in Tokyo in a few hours.  We’re staying in Asakusa!!!  We’ll have four hotel rooms, one for me, Liz, Beth, Crystal and Diana…  one for Rebecca and her friends… one for Dave, Sabby, and David, and one for Robert and his wife.  It works out pretty well.  And us girls have adjoining rooms too, so we can have a big girl-party if we want!!!

David seems relieved he’s with Dave and Sabby, honestly.

There’s this hostel place we were looking at that has eight bunk beds, but there are ten girls, and we didn’t want anyone feeling left out, so we asked if we could do it this way, and Robert said yes.  He’s getting a corporate discount, he’s going to take a few days too, and… Asakusa has an amusement park!  Right in the middle of Tokyo!!!

Oh… ummm…  Crystal’s crying.  I should go see what’s going on.  Diana and Beth are comforting her, but I should check anyway.

Love you all!!!  And I’ll write again when we’re settled in!!!  ❤

(Crystal’s alright. I’ll tell you later.  She’s just overwhelmed that something good is happening to her for a change.)