Tourists

After we got the vans and balloon, we went into Narita to eat lunch and see some sites.

We ate our first real meal in Japan at a food court in a mall. I don't know what you call my food, but it was a pile of rice, covered in egg, with cheese on top and brown sauce. Very good:

I ordered by pointing to a picture, but it wasn't very clear what drinks they had. The language barrier was pretty large, but we could agree on the meaning of "Coca-Cola", so that's what I got. It's the first soda I've had in about 3 years. Al got some gray ice cream that looked like concrete:

It had a very unique taste, but we couldn't figure out exactly what it was.

Then we went to the Narita-san temple. Very cool. There's a downtown-type area with lots of little local shops, then many individual temples on the grounds:


Tomorrow we're going to take the train into Tokyo to see the city. After that, the ballooning starts.

Got it

We picked up the vans and balloons this morning:



(The first picture in the second row is the envelope)

Here's a list of what was packed in the 42"x52" basket: ZL-56 envelope, four 15-gallon tanks, double burners, inflator fan, case of radios, windreader, tripod, tons of USA flags.

Total weight: 811 pounds

The air cargo operation at Tokyo is very interesting, especially with the language barrier. There are tons of security and customs guards, so by the time you get done looking confused, nodding to them, and handing over various pieces of paper, you finally drive off feeling like you just got away with something that you shouldn't have. At any rate, we're pretty much done with ballooning for the day, so it's off to lunch (no more McDonalds) and some sightseeing at the Narita-san temple.

Up and at 'em

We woke up at about 5:30am this morning. It felt really good to sleep. Last night we ended up going back to the airport terminal to eat. A cab into the city of Narita was $20 each way, which seemed like a lot just to eat. So we ended up at a McDonalds. I know, 6500 miles to eat at American fast food...

This morning we'll pickup the balloon and the vans.

The hotel is pretty much like any American hotel. We'll be here until Thursday morning.