Days 1 & 2

Home sweet home!  I was on the other side of world for 11 days visiting friends - taking in all the sights and sounds and smells of a life unlike my own.    My senses were in overdrive; there was so much to take in. 

It took us (myself and 6 friends) over 24 hours to travel there and I only slept about an hour and a half on the plane.  Several times I offered a businessman my economy seat in exchange for his spacious first class accomodations but, surprisingly, none took me up on my lucrative offer.  I guess the allure of slippers, socks, real silverware, a footrest and room to stretch your legs kept them firmly in their seats. 

This was my view for 2 of those hours.  It got only slightly better on the next plane.

We had a very brief layover in Minneapolis and came a little close to missing our international connection.  We were hungry and several of the ladies I was with were grabbing a bite to eat when boarding began and were still nowhere to be seen when the announcement "last boarding call" was made!  But we all made it aboard and then the airline fed us every 2 hours until we made it to Tokyo and then on to Singapore where we had several hours to kill until our final connection.  Singapore's airport is a beautiful place to kill time, though.  And with familiar Starbucks to provide us with a needed caffeine fix we managed through those 5 hours easily.

I'll be posting about each day separately so I don't overload you on pictures.  So!  More to come!  I did, after all, take over 800 pictures while I was gone.  I promise I won't share them all.  ; )