The flight

Monday morning the first half of the group met at 4am at OAHS. Brian, Ariel and families were already there when James, Nicole, and I arrived. Some final paperwork was prepared by Nicole and James, Nicole did a bag check to make sure that bags not overpacked, and we worked out arrangements for drive down to Hayward where we would meet rest of group. Ariel's mom gave us all handmade poofball tags to identify our luggage which proved very helpful later!

This was my first time seen OAHS, it was more like a school than I thought. I knew it was small so had thought it would be more like a barracks.

We jumped in cars and then met Toyeen and Sasha and families. We ended up with a good amount of food and treats from everyone which filled in the gaps of what would be a very long day.

After arriving at SFO we said our goodbyes and were on our way. The questions began, Miss Morello do I have to take of my shoes? Miss Morello do we need our passports for this? I took some photos, finding Brian and Toyeen to be goofballs. I will be lucky to get one picture of them without Brian pointing and Toyeen throwing his arms up into the air.

Arrival in Vancouver went fine, easiest customs ever. Nicole kept on the student about proper gandling of luggage and passports, but then in an ironic twist was the first to lose her sweater :) I tried salmon jerky. It was not great. On way back I'll try maple candy which seemed to be other big specialty.

Nicole gave us lessons in Japanese which Brian and Sasha took to more than rest of us. Ariel seemed exhausted so we let her sleep.

We left Canada with little fuss and started longest flight of my life. Everyone behaved, but 8 hours is long time. We gave the flight attendants a box of chocolates to see if we get special treatment, I don't think it worked... but they were still nice.

We all could watch whatever we wanted on independant screens. I saw Gran Turino and Watchmen. First great movie, I highly recommend it. Second so so.

Finally we touch down at Narita airport.

Adam