Our long awaited and heavily planned trip to Japan and Asia began with a 4AM Uber pickup from our home. At that early hour, the ride to the airport was quick. The lines for priority check in were surprisingly long, exacerbated by one of the agents being tied up by a lengthy issues with a group of passengers, meaning there was only one agent working. She was less than quick, having to ask us multiple times which flight we were traveling on even after we gave her our locator number. But we got our bags checked in and breezed through TSA Pre and headed to the Admiral's Club to await our first of three flights to Japan. Our flight to Dallas went off without a hitch and after a short stop in the Club there, we boarded our flight to Tokyo Haneda airport. We splurged for business class and the service was excellent with quick food delivery so we settled in and tried to get some sleep even though it was the middle of the day for us.

We had a nearly three hour layover planned in Haneda and it almost was not long enough. We used the Visit Japan Web to pre-register our arrival and frankly that took longer to use than the regular lines because we were shuffled over to the machines to do the biometrics and then still had to join the long queue for the regular line. It meant we did not need to do the biometrics there but we would have been through just as fast. The main issue, though, was baggage claim, as even after the long wait at immigration, bags still had not arrived by the time we got to the carousel. We finally were able to pick them up, but unlike other airports where you re-check them right after customs, at Haneda, we were told to take them back out into the main concourse and re-check them at the JAL counter there. There was no line, but then we had to clear security and take a bus that only runs every 15 minutes to the domestic terminal. We just missed the bus which meant a 15 minute wait and a 20 minute bus ride and then a long walk to our actual gate which meant we arrived just 15 minutes before boarding. J. R. bought some waters at a convenience store and then we boarded our flight to Hiroshima.

Baggage claim was not much faster in Hiroshima but we were glad to see the bags arrived. We decided to do the five minute walk to the Hiroshima Airport Hotel which we had booked for the night rather than trying to find the shuttle at this late hour. The hotel was a very pleasant surprise. We were greeted warmly by a representative who spoke flawless English. She explained the hotel amenities and they had a large selection of free items like toothbrushes and hair brushes as well as teas. We took our bags up to our room, which was spacious for an American hotel, let alone a Japanese one. The hotel offered free wine, beer and sake in the Sora Cafe, so after dropping off our luggage, we went back down where J. R. had a self-serve Asahi beer and Janie sampled a local sake which she loved. We were exhausted from travel by this time, so we went back to the room after one drink to get some sleep.