My family and I left the house at 3:30 a.m. to catch our first airplane leaving Denver CO at 6 a.m.
I thought the airport counter would open at 5 a.m. However, when we arrived there, the counter was already open even though it was before 5 a.m. The airport counter worker was nice but he gently suggested me to come to the airport at least 2 hours on my next trip. I guess we will have to leave our house at 2:30 a.m. if we ever go to Japan next time.
Our first airplane to Denver went through normally and we arrived 10 minutes earlier than the scheduled time. But sadly, our next flight, which is the international flight from Denver to Narita Japan was delayed by 3 hours than the scheduled time.
This time it was my first time to take the economy plus seat. Thanks to the campaign from the tourist company, they paid the $500 for the upgrade to economy plus seat. The seat has several inches extra in front of the seats. My daughter and I took the seat number A and C on purpose, hoping that nobody would set between us. Sadly though, the between seat of B was taken by somebody. It was a Vietnamese young woman in her 20s, who was very skinny and small. She and I had a small conversation. I was glad to know she was nice and polite. Her existence never bothered us during the flight.
As always, the flight from America to Japan is the tough one. It takes 2 hours longer than the return flight that is from Japan to America. Our flight took 12 hours and 40 minutes. I could not sleep well during the flight and ended up watching 4 movies.
The movies that I watched were Lady Kaga (2023), Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window (2023), Past Lives (2023), and Smoke Signals (1998).
I enjoyed the 4 movies. As for the last movie, Smoke Signals, even though I watched it many times, probably more than 10 times, this time it deeply touched my soul in a different way than the previous times. It is a story about a son and his dad who was alcoholic, violent, and abandoned the family. At the ending of the movie, the main character asks the audience if we can fully forgive our father or not. Even though my dad was not exactly same as the dad of this movie, the situation was similar that my dad passed away and I had the resentment to my late dad in many ways. This movie put me to lots of emotions that I never faced. I ended up shedding lots of tears during watching this movie. All in all, I appreciate for this opportunity to face and my unresolved emotions toward my late dad and successfully released them along with the tears.
three wisdom 