Kyoto Youth Hostel

What 17 people have been awake for roughly 24 hours?..Yes, you in the back...did you say the Junior Wings students and chaperones?...well, you are correct sir.  We are all running on empty.

Here is our long day in hours:  Wake up at 4ish.  Drive for a few hours to one airport.  Wait for a few hours there.  Sit for 11 hours.  Walk and wait for another hour or so at a new airport.  Take a train for an hour or so to another city.  Walk around the train station for about an hour.  Take a bus for close to an hour.  Wait for pizza (yes pizza) to be delivered.  WOWSER!

Some students have thrown in the towel.  Katrina and Cassi have decided that trying to bite through dough and cheese is just way too much effort when sleep is so easy.

Now let's go back in time a bit.  The plane ride seemed relatively painless.  I believe that close to all of the students slept on Jason at some point over the Pacific.  Neglected Skittles lined the aisles and half-hearted groans of "I'm bored" could be heard faintly over the roar of the engines.  We did see Alaska and some islands.  The plane followed this sort-of half dome up along the Canadian coast then near the Palin state and down to Japan.  I guess making the plane ride longer by being semi-close to land makes more sense in the event of an emergency.

Once we arrived in Osaka there were "Ooohs" and "Aahhs"that would put any 4th of July firework display to shame.  "I want to look at that" and "can I go over there?"  Later and not right now.  Bathrooms were in order then food.  After looking around the airport and not knowing what nor how to order, most students just waited.  Jackie and Meer decided that Subway was the way to go.  Eat fresh.  And they did.

By this point the students were broken into "teams" with each chaperone heading the team.  Kim's group consisting of: Kassity, Megan, True, Shaden and Jackie adopted the name Cooper's Troopers.  Jennifer's group consisting of: Alek, Meer, Anna and Victoria call themselves Team Awesome.  And my team: Brent, Jason, Katrina and Cassi are dubbed The Urchins.  It is a competitive battle and it will only get worse from here.

We finally got on the train to Kyoto and it started raining.  Someone working on the train told us that we needed to quiet down and our students didn't really need telling twice.  At that point, quiet down meant go to sleep.  So that's what most of us did.

We walked around the Kyoto station finding our bus and a place to eat.  We never found the phantom ramen corner, but we did walk through a crazy big mall.  10 stories!  We finally got on the bus and were off to our last destination.  We saw McDonald's and 7-11 along the way amidst the countless other shops.  Meer fell asleep sitting up and Jason took comfort in his shoulder.  Both waking up only briefly to ask how much more we had to go.

We got to the hostel.  Got our towels.  Those of us who are shower-at-night type people showered.  We ate pizza and now most of us are in bed.  We wake tomorrow at 7:00 to eat at 7:30 and then off to the Golden Pavilion and Nanoa.

WHAT A DAY.