Travel Hearing Stories

We flew from Chicago to Tokyo yesterday. Eleven hour flight. But it was nice to take off my ears when it was time to nap.

For the first time, I tried using my Panasonic noise-canceling headphones to listen to the movie. (It was captioned, but in Japanese!) I heard adequately well, probably as well as anybody else with the free in-flight headphones. There were four movies; I only watched two: New In Town and Monsters vs Aliens. It was fun.

The interesting thing with the noise canceling function on is how much better I can hear my husband talk to me, even though sound is muffled by the headphones. Never thought of that.

Going through customs was unnerving, given I don't speak a word of Japanese. And they are conditioned to speak softly, so I was very worried about hearing those who do speak Japanese. Everything was fine; they waved us through. I figured out how to buy the right ticket to get us into Tokyo from the airport, then figure out our hotel was actually near the airport rather than in Tokyo, and get a refund for the $90 we'd spent on the train tickets.

What a relief it was to settle into our hotel room! Joe fell asleep immediately. I went to the little convenience store in the lobby to get some dinner (a bowl of fruit and some potstickers). And I learned how to say thank you in Japanese. It brings such a smile to people's faces when you just try.