I cannot sleep on airplanes, even when a bevy of advantages are thrown my way. The plane was not very full, meaning the seat next to me was completely empty. My noise-canceling headphones reduced the engine noise an amazing amount. Yet I could not sleep.
Empty seats in the Comfort+ section of my flight to Tokyo.
I watched Ferris macht blau, i.e. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off dubbed in German. I’ve seen it before, and I used to be rather bothered by high-pitched German Ferris, but it didn’t annoy me this time. Fun facts: Anytime a character asks another if they speak English, that becomes “Do you speak my language?” The German-language gang don’t eat pancreas; they have octopus instead. And the baseball game chant is for a pitcher named Kennedy.
The woman in front of me watched Misery (I happened to glance up right at the leg breaking scene), The Whale, and some movie on the war in Afghanistan. Really cheery.
Beyond the movie, I read a bit from Matt Parker’s Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension (I have a complaint about the British spelling of “gaol”, or jail), played various varieties of solitaire, and listened to some episodes of the Lateral podcast I had downloaded.
Food-wise, I got the Kosher meal to best accommodate my allergy. Because of this, I got my food before the rest of the passengers and completely sealed, to prevent contamination. My main meal was salmon in sweet chili sauce with rice and zucchini (this was tasty), a roll with non-dairy margarine (also good), “barley salad” (frozen, yet also in water, with corn and peppers. Took a couple of bites and couldn’t do more), and a cake with chocolate topping. The breakfast was terrible - a bagel with egg between it and some questionable fruit.
Airline Kosher meal.
After the neverending flight ended, I made it through customs and immigration relatively quickly. I then withdrew some cash and got a ticket for the train from the airport to Shinagawa, where I bought a coca-cola, a tuna-mayonnaise rice ball (learning that 乳化剤, despite having the milk 乳 character in it, isn’t a dairy word. It means “emulsifier”), and a Shinkansen (the bullet train!) ticket to Hiroshima.
The Shinkansen is so fast. The sudden appearance, sound, and slight change in pressure when we pass another train going in the opposite direction has made me jump a few times. The speed also makes it hard to take photos from the window. Here are a couple of my attempts at getting Mt. Fuji:
Mt. Fuji, taken from the Shinkansen window.
Another view of Mt. Fuji taken from the Shinkansen window.
I’m in Hiroshima now and I’ve had very little sleep the past few days, so good night.