November 24 & 25

November 24 was Thanksgiving in Guam and I thought a short blog post about the wonderful day spent with family was in order.

Sabrina and James live in base housing on Guam and their neighborhood is similar to other base housing neighborhoods, the kids run rampant and the neighbors all know each other and have get together. One of their neighbors hosted Thanksgiving this year, with about 20 people (plus who knows how many kids!) all gathered at her house. I was invited by default!  :)

It was nice to hang out with the neighbors and visit/ meet new people. Most of these folks are around 30 or so, with young kids. I think that Andrew is the oldest one there and he is 11. I even got to hijack a 4 month old baby and held her/rocked her to sleep. It had been so long since I held a baby!

All in all it was good food, good company and the necessary food coma to put us all in the Thanksgiving spirit! I appreciate everyone inviting me and making me feel welcome!


November 25th in the morning was the day I left Guam to go back to Japan and do the Tokyo portion of my vacation. I had to leave super early in the morning, so James graciously agreed to get up at 3:30 and drive me to the airport! The check in and the majority of the flight was uneventful. I have TSA precheck and apparently I am the only person on the Island of Guam who does. First one ahead of everyone else. And I managed to get in front of the throngs of Japanese schoolboys in their uniforms. So it was a win-win!

The flight itself was mainly uneventful. I say mainly because although I got a great nap at the beginning of the flight, 3/4 of the way into the flight turned into a little bit of drama. Not my drama, however. The young 20-something couple in front of me (Japanese tourists to Guam, I imagine) had the drama. The female 20-something of the couple had got up out of her seat to head towards the restroom. I could tell that she wasn't feeling well, and 20-something male passenger was pushing the call button for the FA. Well as the FA come up the aisle, 20-something female got all wobbly on her knees and basically fainted. And when she fainted, on the way down she hit her head on the seat back (the aisle seat). Luckily she hit the padded part. That's when you see every FA on the aircraft come running with oxygen, blankets, cups of water, you name it. And the obligatory call on the PA for "is there a doctor in the house?". There wasn't.  20-something female was conscious and she was just laying in the aisle with all the FAs well, attending to her. 20-something male was a bit useless, but really they all are. And this is the point where I say to myself that I am glad I had got up about 20 minutes before to use the restroom. Because that's the bastard I am in a crisis. Yep, I went there.

All ends well. 20-something female gets up and re-joins 20-something useless male and they stay in their seats until we land. At which time I find out that there are no paramedics at Narita airport (at least today) and that they would send a "manager in a red jacket" to speak to them and I guess make arrangements from there. I didn't stick around because 20-somethings annoy me. I de-boarded the plane with the rest of the passengers and headed to passport control/ immigration and baggage pick up.

So there you go. Some drama that for once didn't involve me falling down some flight of stairs!  Yay for that!  My next post will be about my day in Tokyo and will include pictures. Maybe I should have taken pictures of 20-something couple?  Hmmm, next time....