finally got around to writing about day 1

Sorry for anyone who follows my blog for not updating any sooner, but I have been very busy/lazy. This will be fun to write since the lobby is filled with paint fumes and I'm getting a buzz, and later I will probably get respiratory problems and be quaranteened for Swine Flu. I'm going to try and update two or three days of traveling for the next three days until I can get caught up. So lets get started:

May 8, Departure date: Having never flown internationally before, this was quite the adventure. Number one because I had literally finished with my finals the day before, and because I was busy checking out residents and packing from the time I woke up at nine in the morning, until I left for Charlotte at three in the morning. Not having any sleep for two days made the trip all the more fun.
Most of the group left for the Charlotte Airport by bus around four in the morning and we arrived at about seven. I don't remember talking to anyone other than Trey for the most part because I didn't know anyone else yet and I don't start up conversations easily.
Arriving at Charlotte was fairly uneventful. We scanned our passports into the computer system and checked our luggage. I made the mistake of putting my laptop in my main baggage and not my carry on, so I teared up a bit when I saw the baggage handler throw my suitcase unlovenly on the conveyer belt.
We then waited a bit before boarding the plane. It was very uneventful, we got on the plane, rode it for a couple hours and got off the plane at Fort Worth Texas.
We then boarded the flight to Tokyo. This flight sucked. Not because of the food which was great actually, not because of boredom because we had in flight movies to watch and I brought a book to read, but the flight sucked because of the sheer length of the flight. 13 freaking hours of sitting in the cramped chairs. I took periodic power naps but they only did so much.
When we finally arrived at Tokyo airport, we had a couple of hours of downtime to do as we pleased, so I soaked up the new sights and sounds, speciffically some beer. The airport had beer on tap and in cans at a stall in the hallway, along with an assortment of reading materials, snack foods, and a smoking room. I thought this was pretty awsome because it shows that not every country is socially repressed about alcohol and smoking, it was perfectly cool to do it out in the open, instead of a dark room or in you room like you would have to do in America.
While waiting for the flight, I met a really cool guy named Ben who was from Nepal and had been living in Colorado for fourteen years. His English was amazing, but his accent was so thick that I had to ask him to repeat himself repeatedly and I felt like a jerk for asking. Anyways, we chatted for about half an hour before my flight left, said goodbye boarded the final flight to Taipei, Taiwan.
The flight was great, mainly because I slept through the whole thing. As soon as the plane left the runway, the only time that I was awake was when they gave us our meal, which I would have slept through if my seat had not been next to the food station where the flight attendants were fixing the meal.
When the plane landed, we had our passports stamped, got on our bus, and rode to the hotel where I crashed shortly after checking in. I'm sure that more interesting things happened during the travels, but I'm writing this four days after and I'm sure that I forgot a lot of the cool things that happened.