Our Trip (from June 7th)

Have you ever had one of those days where it “seemed” like nothing was going your way? That was the description of our trip – at first. Our trouble began when we checked in at Naha airport to catch our flight out of Okinawa. Our luggage (all 8, large pieces) should have been checked all the way through to Tel Aviv. Instead, they informed us that there was a mistake made in booking and they had us going to Dallas, Texas instead of Bangkok, Thailand! To correct this problem, they said we would have to pick up our luggage once we arrived in Tokyo and re-check it for the rest of our flights. We got to Tokyo, claimed our baggage, and headed off to find the right counter to check our bags, again. We got there, and things were going smoothly until the man who was helping with our luggage accidentally put our car seat on the belt. Off goes our car seat into the abyss of the airport underground — untagged! They put out a notice immediately so the baggage handlers could find it and bring it back. But, as you can imagine, this was going to take some time; and we had another flight to catch. They assured us that they would do their best to find it in time, and gave us invitations to go to their first class lounge while we were waiting for our flight. We were pretty annoyed with what had happened so far, but there was nothing that we could do. Out of all of our luggage, that was the piece that we were most willing to lose, so that was good. We needed to eat, but we had already exchanged all of our Yen, so we were hoping to get fed once we got on our flight, which was 2 hours away. We headed off to the lounge to wait and had a very nice surprise. The Japanese definitely know how to treat you right! The lounge was large and beautiful with a small “restaurant” inside—free for all guests. They had so many choices, from Soba noodles to Sushi. We realized when we sat down to eat all of this wonderful (free) food that God was in control of this day right from the start. It was not a mistake that we were booked to Texas, because that mistake caused us to re-check our luggage in Tokyo. In re-checking our luggage, we lost our car seat, which enabled us to get fed for free. It all worked according to His plan. We were not worried anymore about the car seat. We knew that God would work that out too – it was just part of the plan. Sure enough, when we were finally finished taking advantage of the airline’s hospitality, we headed to our gate. They were waiting for us there, wanting us to identify the car seat that they had found. Everything was worked out for us, and we were ready to be on our way to Thailand. Almost 7 hours later we arrived in Bangkok with only an hour to make it to our connecting flight. How hard could that be, right? Okay, we’ve heard wonderful things about Thailand and how nice the people are, but I guess we got there on a day when everyone was in a bad mood. We had the hardest time finding where we should be going – having everything written in another language didn’t help, and the information desks were conveniently closed. We were almost at a run (with two kids) trying to make it to our next gate. We finally found it, after “running” for 30 minutes! We got there and were one of the last people to get on the flight. El Al Airlines to Israel. Eleven hours of kosher food and rude service. The passengers were nice though, and of course, everyone was enthralled by the kids’ white blonde hair. The kids have always been good travelers, and this trip was no different. They were very well behaved and actually slept this time around. We were greeted in Tel Aviv by an expediter from the Consulate who took us straight through so we wouldn’t have to wait in line for customs. We retrieved our luggage for the last time and a driver took us “home” to Jerusalem. Now is when culture shock starts setting in!!