6,421 miles for the best noodles ever!

I'm not senior enough to hold a full schedule, so I mostly fly what is called vacation replacement, where I get a portion of the trips a co-worker will not fly due to vacation and then days where I am obligated to fly. This month's vacation line gave me Maui trips, but I traded one with my friend Leatha for her Tokyo trip. It worked out for her, so she could get the weekend off, and it worked out for me as I netted an additional 10 hours of flying.

We arrive into Tokyo in the late afternoon, and we are pretty much exhausted from the 14 hour flight over, so most folks go down to the little crew cafeteria in the hotel basement. The highlight is Magic Salmon, which for some people isn't so magical (some people claim they get sick). This time though I strayed and did the Tofu Garlic, which was served over cabbage and veggies. A few Kirins from the self-filling draft machine is always a must as well.

The best thing for me about Tokyo though is the Ramen Bayashi Noodle Shop in the town of Narita, where we layover. It's very popular with the crews of many airlines that layover there, so much so that the place is decorated with pictures, model airplanes, stickers... basically all sorts of airline paraphernalia.

I was able to talk two of my co-workers, Gay and Cheryl, into going to town with me the next morning to enjoy the noodles and stroll around for a while. The weather was brisk, but it was sunny, so it really made it pleasant to be outside.

After a hearty helping of Chili Pepper Noodles, a suggestion from my friend Bobby, we had to walk off the food so we went to the hardware store so I could get my automatic bottle opener. I am not really sure HOW is works, but basically you place it over your bottles, push down, and it opens them automatically. We continued to stroll around town, including the area down by the Narita-san temple and then meandered on back to the train station where the hotel bus comes to fetch us.

We had some time to kill so we went to the grocery store nearby. The one thing about the noodles that gets me is the sodium factor, so I needed some juice or water to rehydrate. The Japanese sell this sports drink called Pocari Sweat (I know, who wants to drink something with the word sweat in it?) http://www.pocarisweat.com.ph/ and I wanted to stock up on rice crackers and some other sundries for the flight home.

I was taken with a product in the pet aisle.... little baggies to collect dog droppings. Nothing really out of the ordinary about it, but the packaging was rather strange, as it was a picture of a dogs butt.



After heading back to the hotel, I tried to take a nap before our afternoon pick up, but could not sleep so I watched a Woody Allen movie I had rented from Netflix.... Vicky Christina Barcelona, which was pretty good as far as Woody's movies go.

The flight home was only 11 hours and though we were pretty full, it went by fast.