I met up with my family, plus my brother’s friend who goes by the name “Krafty”, in the San Francisco airport. We were all quite hungry after our long direct flights out to SF (they flew in from Philly). Things sure aren’t what they used to be as far as food on domestic flights. Then again, the lack of this commonplace luxury of days gone by makes one realize how fancy it is to have a hot meal served to you while you’re cruising at 842 kilometers per hour (yeah, that’s my current speed; I have a screen that tells me this).

Anyhow, we got to our hotel in SF at around 12:30 am Pacific time, and the boys were all too hungry to sleep. Also, we passed an In-N-Out Burger, which was too good to pass up, and I thought it would be an important experience for my East Coast companions to pass up. So Krafty, Noo Noo, Matt, and I walked to said In-N-Out Burger and ate some quality fast food. I was too hungry to photograph any food before I ate it, but Noo Noo got a picture. I think it’s on Facebook somewhere.

Kristin went all out and bought a Nikon digital SLR camera to document the trip. Noo Noo has been carrying it around and figuring out how to use it.

We boarded a hotel shuttle back to the airport. The shuttle seemed to have some decorations left over from Valentine’s Day, which seemed strange. I mean, it’s October, so since Valentine’s Day, we have had St. Patrick’s Day, Independence Day, and probably some other holidays I’m not thinking of, all of which are arguably at least as significant as Valentine’s Day. My hypotheses for the shuttle still being decked out with a heart-shaped garland are as follows.

1. There used to be one driver on staff who decked out the shuttle for every holiday. This person left in February, and no one else bothered to take down the hearts.
2. There is one driver on staff who is so into Valentine’s Day that he/she has Valentine’s Day decorations up year-round.
3. There are many shuttles, each one permanently decorated for one specific holiday. Rather than decorating and undecorating the shuttles as the year cycles through holidays, the staff just uses the one shuttle that is holiday-appropriate. Currently every shuttle except for the Valentine’s shuttle is broken down.
4. Any other hypotheses, readers?

Here is the crew at the airport (and waiting for the Valentine’s shuttle – I had to compile photos since we haven’t figured out how to put that fancy new camera on timer yet).

Also, we are cutting Kira’s birthday short by flying over the international date line today, but I think we are going to celebrate later. As a fun fact, I learned that in Japan, one can get a significant discount on airplane and train tickets if someone in one’s group has a birthday in the current month.

Kristin mentioned that Noo Noo is probably going to have the easiest time adjusting to the time zone in Osaka since he is semi-nocturnal at home. This also meant that he slept through the meal service on our international flight today.

And I took the opportunity to order a vegetarian meal for him and eat it in addition to mine.

I did, however, save the bread roll, miniature brownie, and pretzels, which were all nicely packaged. I offered them to him when he awoke.

Bonus: later, I got this Valentine’s-themed cookie.