Doug and I started our journey to Japan on Sunday morning. We got up at 2 a.m. to leave for the Cincinnati International Airport (it’s about an hour and half drive from Richmond, KY). My Dad was able to take us to the airport. We loaded up the SUV and set off for our day of traveling. We arrived at the Cincinnati Airport around 4:30 a.m. We unloaded the SUV and went to the United Airlines counter. There was not a soul at the United Airlines counter so we waited. The other airline counters were open. Around 4:45ish a.m., Doug called United Airlines to see when the counter would be open, they said 5 a.m. Well 5 a.m. came and no one showed. Doug called United Airlines again, they now said 5:30 a.m. The airport and the airlines suggest you should be there about two hours before your flight, but you cannot have someone out your check-in and checked baggage counter. Okay.
At 5:30 a.m., the check-in Kiosks turned on, but you cannot check-in on them if you are flying international. Someone did eventually arrive a little after 5:30 a.m. We eventually got our seven bags checked for the flight. The cats were flying in the cabin on the flight. Doug had Calcifer and I had Gigi. We decided to take Calcifer and Gigi because they travel better than Mittens. When we moved from Florida to Colorado, Mittens didn’t eat for a few days and she scared us. Mittens is staying with my Mom and enjoys being on her own.
We used TSA precheck to help us get through security quickly. Doug had heard we would have to take the cats out of the carriers and walk them through. We have been nervous about this because Calcifer doesn’t do well around strangers. He doesn’t know how strong he is and he uses his claws when he is scared. We bought harnesses and leashes for them but Calcifer is a big, powerful cat. I have witnessed his great strength and can escape the harness quickly. The TSA agents said they could call someone to take a look. The TSA agents were understanding and kept assuring us someone was coming to help. We had no problem waiting, it was only a few minutes anyway. Two TSA agents came, we handed them the cats, we went through the scanners, and they escorted us to a room. They checked under their harnesses and then checked the cat carriers. They were lovely and talked to us about how cute our cats are. Then we left, headed off to find our terminal and gate.
Once at the gate, Doug went in search of some water. I stayed with the cats and our belongings. While walking through the terminal to the gate, nothing was really opened, I just figured it was way too early for them to be open. There was a Starbucks and a Subway opened. While waiting to board, they made sure to announce, you are required to wear a mask at all times on the plane (you could remove the mask when eating or drinking). Once on the plane, we knew there would be several people flying. The plane wasn’t full, but it was at or below 50% capacity. The cats were under our seats for the flight. We flew from Cincinnati, OH to Newark, NJ. There was no beverage/snack service during the flight. The flight was about two hours long.
We landed in Newark, deboarded the plane, which didn’t take long. We made sure to wear our masks the whole time in the airport, as we made our way to the next gate. Thankfully we landed in the same terminal that we were leaving from. While walking through the airport, it was eerie. The shops and the food places should be open, because we landed at 9 a.m. Not with Covid-19. The shops were closed, totally get it. The food places were closed too. The airport wasn’t bustling, it was quiet and few people are traveling right now. It was a long walk with the cats and our personal items. We made it to the gate, and there were only six people waiting at the gate. Doug and I had been up for seven hours and hadn’t ate anything. Doug went off in search for a place to get food. I stayed with the cats and our stuff. He ended up finding a breakfast place. He called me to tell me what was on the menu, and I told him what I wanted. Doug got a steak sandwich and I got a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. He also got us drinks too. He got himself a Coca-Cola and me a lemonade. It was delicious.
Our next flight was from Newark International Airport to Narita International Airport near Tokyo. We would leave at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday and land at 1:55 p.m. on Monday. Our flight was for 13 and half hours. We were required to wear a mask the whole time on the flight. The only time we didn’t have to wear the mask was while eating and/or drinking. Before boarding the plane, we had to show our documentation that we were allowed to be on the flight. Japan is limiting who is allowed in the country. Japanese citizens are allowed and military through the SOFA agreement. We had to show a copy of orders, the cats’ authorization to get into Japan, and our passports. We had to show all this documentation twice. Then we were able to board the plane.
The plane we were on, was a newer Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner. The windows had two dim buttons, one to make it lighter and one to make it darker. The seats had a built in touch screen tablet. You could watch movies or TV shows, look at the flight path, turn your overhead light on and off, and a USB charging port. They had a vast collection of TV shows and movies. My plan was to re-watch a Japanese TV show on the plane, downloaded from Netflix. Yes, on Netflix you can download any Netflix Original shows or movies (make sure you do this beforehand). Doug was looking for movies to watch and they had all the Harry Potter Movies. I decided to see how many Harry Potter films I could get through before we landed in Tokyo. I started with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone a few minutes before take off and made it through all the way to Goblet of Fire (#5). I made it about thirty minutes into Half-Blood Prince before we landed. I did take short naps during the movies to help with jet lag.
On our almost 14 hour flight, we did receive three meals. I have heard airline food isn’t the best. This was my first flight to receive meals on, so I got to form my own opinion. They fed us three meals. Our first meal, we had chicken with a creamy spinach sauce over rice, pretzels and chocolate chip cookies. Doug is a picky eater so he only ate the chicken and the rice from his tray. I ate all of mine. I gave him my pretzels since he didn’t eat much. Our next meal, we had a turkey and swiss sandwich with Dijon mustard on it, a mixed fruit cup, chocolate chip cookies and M&Ms. Doug did not eat his sandwich because he doesn’t like mustard. I got to eat his sandwich! He also gave me his fruit cup. I did give him my M&Ms since I got two sandwiches. Our last meal, we had a flatbread sandwich with sausage, egg, and a red pepper sauce, blueberry yogurt, and chocolate chip cookies. Doug doesn’t eat yogurt so we traded! He gave me his blueberry yogurt and I gave him my cookies. My favorite meal was the chicken with rice, it was yummy! My least favorite was the flat tortilla sandwich, it was cold in the center, this made it distasteful.
Deboarding the plane in Narita (Tokyo) was different than when we deboarded in Newark. Before you were allowed to leave the plane, we had Covid-19 and quarantine papers to fill out (we received these papers before we took off). First, they deboarded passengers who had a connecting flight to Singapore. Then, everyone else was allowed to leave the plane. There were a total of 26 passengers on the plane. When we got off the plane, we were standing waiting on an airport personnel to walk us to the Covid-19 testing area. Once there, we handed our paperwork to a quarantine airport worker, who made sure our information was correct and translated a few things from English to Japanese. We then got into another line. While waiting, they took our temperature. When we got to the front of the line, they took our Covid-19 and quarantine paperwork, then prepared a vial for our cotton swab to go into (Covid-19 test). Once we got our vials, we then had to wait in another line. This line was to get swabbed. I got the pleasure to go first! My brother got a Covid-19 test done for his work. He kept saying they touched his brain and couldn’t see for a good bit afterwards. He was correct! The lady had me tilt my chin and pull my face mask past my nose. She inserted the cotton swab in my right nostril and the left nostril. When finished, I got out of the chair and got some hand sanitizer. I really couldn’t see for a minute and then my nose started to run. Doug was next. He sneezed after his test.
After the Covid-19 test, they had us in a waiting area. Everybody was told to wait there unless your ride was waiting for you already. We waited for fifteen minutes, we were waiting for two other military members, then we were off! We had an airport official to escort us around. Our first stop was the SOFA Entry checkpoint. We could only go one at a time, so Doug had to hand me a copy of his orders. I gave the Immigration Officer, my military passport, my military ID, and the orders. Next, we went downstairs to pick up our luggage. There was an airport worker who took our luggage off of the carousel and had it grouped together. We loaded our luggage on two carts. The lady from animal quarantine, came to get us from the luggage carousel. You could see the animal quarantine from the luggage carousel. At animal quarantine, they needed all of Gigi’s and Calcifer’s paperwork from when we took them to the veterinarian. While Doug was getting all the paperwork out, another person from the animal quarantine came to get Gigi’s and Calcifer’s temperature. We went to a small room, where they took their temperature and made sure Gigi was a girl and Calcifer was a boy. At animal quarantine, they were given a post-it to get them through Customs and a paper that approved them to enter Japan. Next, we went through Customs. This was close to where we picked up our luggage. We went through one at a time. We had our passports scanned and they checked the cats for the post-it. Then we were off to the DoD Information Desk. At the Information desk, we were told the bus doesn’t allow cats, we knew this, and Doug had talked to the Restriction of Movement (ROM) coordinator at Naval Air Facility (NAF) Atsugi, who provided a ride for us. We were then escorted to an area to wait for our ride. In this area, we had to provide our information and we would wait in an area. While giving our information, a lady wanted to talk to me about the cats. She kept saying ‘Neko’ which is a cat in Japanese. I held up two fingers because I forgot how to say two in Japanese (I keep getting one and two mixed up). She was so excited and it was a precious moment. I know they love cats in Japan, but it took this specific moment for it to really sink in. After they got our information, we were escorted to some cardboard seating.
There were also some free snacks! I stayed with our luggage and Doug got us some snacks. We both ate a banana and the bean paste pancake. Then Doug decided to go to the bathroom since we would be there for a while. I stayed with the luggage and I would go to the bathroom when he came back. Well, while Doug was in the bathroom, a guy came to tell us our ride was there. I had to tell him I was waiting for Doug to come back. As I was saying that, Doug walked up and was like oh it is time to go. We were then escorted to our driver. Our driver then took us to an area to get the van. We loaded up the van and then left the airport.
Our destination for this part of the trip was to NAF Atsugi. You are thinking, ‘wait I thought you were going to Sasebo.’ We are, but we are being placed on a fourteen day ROM period at NAF Atsugi. The trip from Tokyo Narita Airport to NAF Atsugi was a two hour trip in a van. I fell asleep for an hour in the van.
Once on NAF Atsugi, the driver took us to the Navy Gateway Inn and Suites but we weren’t staying there. There was another driver there to take us to the barracks. You usually hear negative things about barracks, but Doug and I didn’t care as long as we had a place to stay. The barracks was a better option than a tent. Doug and I were told we would only be in the barracks for a day then be moved to the Navy Lodge. We were fine with this. At this point, we just needed a litter box for the cats. Calcifer only peed on the plane and Gigi hadn’t used the bathroom at all (surprising for her because she usually poops 20 minutes into a trip). When we walked into the barracks, I was surprised at how nice it was. It was better than any dorm I ever stayed in college. We had our own room and bathroom. There was a kitchen that you had to share because there was another room. There was no one in the other room though, maybe that is why it was nice because it was just us. I put our suitcases in the closet to get them out of the way. Then Doug started to work on a list for our gofer. Our main concern was to get a litter box and litter. We only had the gofer get a few things since we were only staying in the barracks for a day.
Our gofer was able to get litter but no litter box, but we ended up getting us a big cardboard box. This would totally work for a day. As soon as we put litter in the box, Gigi hopped in and went to the bathroom. Cats can hold their urine for 24-48 hours. I am proud of her for holding her bladder that long.
Our total travel from waking up, going to the Cincinnati International Airport, to arriving at the barracks in NAF Atsugi, was 26 hours.
Hale of a Journey 