The Flight Home

We left the US on Monday morning; however, due to the international date line, we didn't arrive in Singapore until Wednesday (at 2 in the morning, ouch). The time in the air is 18 hours (11 hours to Tokyo, 7 to Singapore), but with early arrival at the airport, customs, layover time, baggage collection, etc., it's probably almost a full day of travel.

As always, the flight was not fun. The San Francisco-Tokyo flight was full, and we did not get bulkhead seats. The plane was an old one (for some reason, Delta uses all its janky, decrepit planes for its US flights; the ones within Asia are pretty nice). Thus, we were stuck in the middle of the plane, in very cramped seats. There was no room for little R to even stand on the floor, so we spent hours going up and down the aisles to keep her amused: mostly this was me, as B 1. had the flu and 2. had to finish preparing for his classes, which started 9 hours after our arrival. Little R slept for maybe an hour. In the end, this was not all bad, because on the next leg she slept for maybe two-thirds of the flight.

The Tokyo connection was really tight (as in, our flight had started boarding before we landed), so we had to hustle to make it. I was glad that I had packed food, because otherwise it would have been a long, sad journey. We again did not have bulkhead seats, but we did have our own row of three (our row mate switched seats when he saw us: a win-win situation I suppose!). Having more space is really nice, but little R could not actually use her seat. I put her in it to sleep (lying down) but then she moved in her sleep and fell off onto the floor, with a big thud. She was not pleased. Oops. So she slept for the rest of the flight on my lap, interspersed with eating Cheerios and getting their little gummy remnants all over my black jeans and sweater. (Note to self: do not wear black when traveling with little R unless you want to look like a hobo.)

While little R was sleeping, I watched Moneyball. B recommended this movie, I think because it's about economics: it even features one of his important computer programs in a screen shot. I call it the Black Program but do not know its real name: it's for running statistical analyses I think. It was mildly entertaining but I would probably have preferred some dumb girly movie like What's Your Number? Second note to self: when in the market for mindless entertainment, do not consult B.