Day 1: Getting Here

It's been an absurdly long day.
The Plan: Seattle (Alaska Airlines) -> San Francisco (Japan Airlines) -> Tokyo (Japan Airlines) -> Hakodate (Shuttle Bus) -> Hotel
    I left Seattle around 9:30pm Sunday evening after an hour of maintenance and paperwork delays. I got lucky and the middle seat between me and the other woman in my row (who was visiting her brother in Seattle and works in San Francisco) remained empty the whole time.
Here is airplane food:

Note: Cranberry juice + Ginger Ale is the best airplane drink of all time, but I forgot to ask for the cranberry juice.
The plane landed around 11:30pm, and I had no idea where I was supposed to go after that, and unfortunately no one who worked there seemed to know either. Eventually I stumbled upon the Japan Airlines lounge and the nice older Japanese woman (an obaasan) at the counter checked me in and gave me the rest of my boarding passes. She also told me that I would have to pick up my suitcase when I got to Tokyo, take it through customs with me, then give it to the connections counter to get it the rest of the way. In Seattle I was told I wouldn't need to pick it up until I got to Hakodate, so I'm incredibly glad that the she mentioned this.
    The flight to Tokyo was just over 11 hours.
Here is the plane:


I got lucky again and had lots of leg room because I ended up in the front row of my section:

Airplane food:

Airplane breakfast at 2am (in Seattle):

It was actually pretty good, but for some reason the main breakfast dish was...

    ...spaghetti!
I slept for about 5 hours (3am-8am Seattle time, 7pm- 2am Japan time). The woman sitting next to me (who works in administration and the University of Arkansas and was going to visit a friend in Japan) found out halfway through the flight that we had TV screens that folded up from under the armrest. She watched The Revenant on hers, but didn't get to see the end. I tried to look at the flight map but it didn't work. Then, while I was trying to make it work, I accidentally pressed a button which called over a flight attendant who also could not get the map to work. She said they would reset it up front and came back every half hour or so to see if it was working yet while I sat there trying to explain that I was completely fine with not watching the map.

First few glimpses of Tokyo:
   
And landing:


The plane arrived around 12:45pm, Monday in Seattle, and 4:45am, Tuesday in Tokyo. The way my flight worked out with the big change in time zones, I didn't see sunlight for 16 hours.
After passing through customs and rechecking my suitcase, I had to take a free shuttle bus from the international terminal to the domestic terminal I was flying out of and pass through security again. I found out that when you're flying internationally, getting to the airport before 5am is pretty sweet crowd-wise. There are almost no lines for anything, and the only thing I really had to wait for was when parts of the airport were not open yet. My plane wasn't scheduled to take off until 7:50am, so I had a lot of time to kill.

Cute cartoon-covered weather forecast:


I got a green tea, a 空弁 (sky bento), and an onigiri at the airport for breakfast (#2?):

Onigiri #1:

Plane pictures:

 

The plane was only about half full, so the seat next to me was empty again.
Here is the rest of breakfast #2:

And more plane pictures:


I think that coast is the northernmost part of Honshuu, but I'm not sure.
And finally plane pictures of Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan:

 
 
The plane arrived around 9:10am.
Cute fish on the baggage claim conveyer belt:

Bus Pictures:


I took Shuttle Bus #3 to the front of the Hakodate Kokusai Hotel, and could see my hotel from there so I walked a few blocks over to it. It wasn't my hotel. I knew the general direction of it and had seen it from the plane, but just couldn't seem to find it. I must have looked pretty lost because eventually a sweet older woman (another obaasan) with a parasol asked me where I was going and offered to walk me there.

Thus far, kind obaasans have been vital to my getting where I need to go. Without them I would have been roaming Hakodate indefinitely, with no suitcase, searching for the correct hotel building.
Shout out to kindly and helpful obaasans!
I got to the hotel around 10:30, and had planned on asking them to hold my suitcase until check in at 3pm so I could go wander around for a while, but I ended up just sitting in the lobby.
Me exhausted and a little crazy after 22 hours of traveling:

My room ended up being ready early around 11:30 which was really nice. I was able to clean up, change, and relax for a little while and felt so much better afterwards. The room was meant to be a double so it has a lot of room, and the view is nice from the 6th floor:
 
There are cute little Scottie dogs on seven of the bathroom tiles:

The fancy toilet control panel:

Cool room stuff:

 
Me, no longer feeling like death:

I ended up walking a few blocks to the 7-11 for lunch and also got a coffee from a vending machine and some rose candies (which upon further inspection turned out have collagen/vitamin C in them and are supposed to be good for your skin... I'm not sure whether or not that's true, but they are quite yummy):

 
Note: Onigiri #2
I usually don't drink much cold coffee, but this one was really good, and I like the can.

I was going to go back to 7-11 and grab something for dinner, but I'm way too tired.
I'm planning to just get ready for bed and go to sleep, or maybe I'll try the lavender bath stuff from the bathroom basket first. Good night!

Also, me (again) trying to get a picture in front of the view earlier:



Note: The toilet is heated and amazing. The bathroom mirror is also heated, but only right above the sink so it doesn't get foggy there when you shower. It's pretty great.
The hotel room I'm in has just about everything, including: a tea kettle, Japanese brown rice tea (bags), a hairdryer, a book of Buddhist teachings, crazy multi-charger-things (pictured above), foam slippers, pajamas, teacups, regular water glasses, air freshener, a lint brush, a shoe horn, a LAN cable, wifi, an air conditioner, a TV, a little map of the room which shows you where a bunch of these things are located, and more.
The bathroom has it's own set of goodies including: slightly smaller bathroom water glasses, a tiny waterproof pillow you can suction on to the side of the bathtub, shampoo and conditioner dispensers, body wash, toothbrushes that come with teeny tiny tubes of toothpaste, "body sponges," shower caps, razors with tiny pouches of shaving cream, lavender bath salt, mint bath salt, tiny fold-up hairbrushes, and tiny Q-tips (most of which is pictured above).