English: "Plane"
Japanese: "Touki" とうき
As you all should know I am in Japan, banzai!
But I'm exhausted.
I feel the things I'm seeing and experiencing deserve a proper write up and a nice side of pictures so I'm going to take my time on getting it typed up. To hold you over, enjoy some flight tips for general long plane travel but specifically useful to studying abroad.
- Know how heavy your carryon(s) are. Make sure you can comfortably walk long distances, possibly very quickly with your bag(s) especially in larger airports. Going from domestic to international terminals can be a long distance and if your layover is short you could be running. Which leads me too..
- Longer layovers are good. Now, I don't mean like 6 hours but a nice 2 hours is not a bad thing. My plane to SFO arrived 20 minutes early in addition to my 1hr 30minute layover and I got to my next terminal 10 minutes before boarding. I didn't get lunch. :<
- Eat. Sleep. The basics. Seriously, you will get run down especially if you're anxious and overly focused on everything else. Everytime I started to have a breakdown I realized it was because I was hungry or sleep deprived and as soon as I fixed that I was fine.
- 11 hours is a damn long time. Seriously. After about the third time watching Aladdin I began to process how long it is. And when you're confined to a tiny space about the size of a chair and surrounded on all sides by silent strangers you really begin to notice. And stretch! Your body does not like being still for hours on end. Even in your chair you can do little movements to help with circulation.
- If you are studying abroad try to find out if other students are on your flight or leaving the same airport. It may sound cheesy but just having a fellow ex-pat to engage can really boost your morale. I can't tell you how much better I felt when I found the group of Kansai Gaidai students in KIX.
- Airport stores horribly over inflate prices.
- Airplane food is amazing if you are hungry.
- If you can help it, always check in early to your flights and check your assigned seat. One of my flights the plane was changed to a larger plane to allow more capacity and so I lost my window seat. If you notice a seat change or want a seat change you can ask for a change based on vacant seat availability.
- Airport staff are there to help you! If you are scared or have questions, just ask! They are generally very nice people.
- Do not (caramel) dance while being scanned by the TSA. They are very nice but do not mess around.
- Airplane staff are amazing. They can switch from language to language perfectly. I have a great respect for them.
- For good measure, if you're going to a place where another language is spoken try to learn at least "please", "thank you", and "sorry". Manners are good!
- In-ear headphones are a great way to cheaply cancel noise on planes and listen to things. They can, however, make you feel a bit sick depending on how you wear them.
- You can check film canisters through TSA without it being scanned. Just be nice and say "please" and "thank you".
- Bring medicine for headaches. 8 hours of listening to music or watching the little plane screen will give you a doozie of a headache.
- When rewatching the same in-flight programming for the second+ time, "your mom" jokes help it retain enjoyability. Especially shows about space by Stephen Hawkings.
- Find the comedy radio channel. Enjoy it.
Ja ne!
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