Last night was one of those stressful sleepless nights. Having dinner too late in the evening, I had acid reflux when I went to bed. It kept me up until 1am when I last looked at the phone. The alarm was set for 4:50, our taxi was coming at 6am. Just as I fell asleep, I heard that distinctive beep signaling that my phone is almost out of juice.
With my phone also being our alarm clock, we were dependent on it to ring at the right time and not die out during the night. With Ron sleeping, I had to root around looking for the charger PLUS the electric adapter. Our adapter is a bit boxy, so the weight of it sometimes pulls it out of the wall socket. I had to create a blind balancing act to keep the charger happily connected to the wall, while the phone was happily suckling on the charger. All appropriate lights were lit, so I could get back to sleep.
An hour into a deep sleep, my subconscious shoved me awake. Check the clock. All is well at 2:45am. Falling back asleep, again that feeling thrusts me into having to think. Look at the clock 3:34 am. Try it again, thinking 3 is the charm, but not so. The third awakening was at 4:45am. Why bother trying to get a few minutes sleep now. Just out of curiosity and lack on energy, I did maintain an inert status long enough to see if the alarm would go off. It sure did. Now that I had this extra time, I could pack the charger, the electric adapter, and the phone.
When we checked in for our flight, there was still some anxiety over the luggage, though I had given away the third piece yesterday. No worries, both bags came in under the maximum allowed, though my backpack is stuffed. They would only check it to Japan. We have a twenty-one hour layover, so we will need to collect it and put it through again when we check in again. They could not give us boarding passes through.
Air New Zealand did a nice job with the service from Auckland to Tokyo, but damn if the weather was not cooperating. Almost immediately they gave us immigration papers to fill in for Japan as well as Customs Declarations. With the plane shaking like paint in a mixer, I thought it is a waste of time to fill out those papers until we are sure we will survive the flight. If anything, we needed to amend our wills.
Yet, we landed fine. We could have taken the shuttle to our hotel if we wanted to wait 1 1/2 hours, so it was a taxi instead. Don't even get me started on the cost of the taxi. However, the airline gave us breakfast and dinner, so we did not need to venture out for dinner; that was a savings.
Japan is 4 hours different than NZ, meaning we gained 4 hours. Too bad, because by 8pm, Ron was ready for bed. I have to stay up later or I will be up at 3am. I should take a pill, but they are packed and I am not touching those bags.
Tomorrow, we will be home again. After a week or two, it will be like we had not had a vacation at all. The photos will have to become our computer slideshow screensaver to refresh our memory of the fantastic times we had, the places we visited, and the people we met.
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