This was the first official day of our first official evoTrip… it’s kind of crazy first of all to think that it’s March already, but whats more, we are in route to Hakuba, Japan!

How to sum up our first day? hurry up and wait could be the easiest way…. but lets throw in a bit of sleeping, eating, sleeping, then more eating and more sleeping… then a dash of sitting and lugging around our wagon train of gear through Narita Airport in Japan….  BUT NO, it doesn’t stop there.

So for some of us the trip started around 3am on Saturday to load up and head out to the airport…  the other half of the crew took the late flight and enjoyed a morning coffee, newspaper and a slow trek towards the airport around 10:30′ish… not bad but we ended up having to wait for them for a couple extra hours once on the ground in Tokyo.

I gotta hand it to those Koreans, they sure know how to fly.  Im not sure who they they got it, but they’ve got the “service” part dialed.  I’ve never experienced such a high level of service on a flight before… i mean, hot towels, a care package with booties and toothbrushes and meal after meal.  The flight attendants were gorgeous and the movies were good.

When we touched down in Tokyo we were off the plane pretty quick, i was impressed.  We were out the door and no more than maybe 5mins to the baggage claim area and our luggage was already on a couple carts.

So yeah, we ended up having to wait a couple extra hours once on the ground.  Bryn Hughes our photographer ended up getting stuck back in the states.  His plane was having issues, something had to be repaired and then by the time it was good to go the pilot had exceeded his hours for flight so they had to wait around for a new pilot to show up.

By this time we were pretty well jet lagged.  No coffee nor beer in the world could rally the stoke that we should’ve been experiencing…and for some of us, we were in Japan for the first time ever!

Our driver Ichiro was so awesome.  Waiting patiently with his “evoTrip” sign for us all, getting us to the bus, loading our oversized ski bags into his van and putting up with our complete lack of understanding of 90% of what he was saying.  He did well with his two engrish words, “movement” and “freetime”… we found that they can convey many things.

On our trek through Tokyo heading towards Hakuba we got a little tease of whats to come.  I really hope we get a day or so on the end of the Japan leg to hang out in Tokyo.  Lots of crazy structures and i’ve never seen such clean and FUN Rest Areas…yes, i said FUN Rest Areas.  They were SO colorful and at the entrance of the women’s restrooms they had these “lightboards” that mapped out all of the bathroom stalls and had lights indicating if they were open or occupied.  But wait, it doesn’t stop there!  Not only was there a bidet control pad, but there was a music, ipod function!  It was incredible.

Moving on.  So we endured our 4hr trek from Tokyo to Hakuba, actually most of us slept but we made it.  Stoked to be here and can’t wait for the incredible turns, culture and adventures to come!

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evoTrip | Day 1 – Travel from evo on Vimeo.