Getting there is never half the fun when it involves over 24 hours of airports, planes and shuttle buses. With a 4 hour wait in Chicago and a 14 hour flight to look forward to, I walked laps around concourse C until I had the order of the shops memorized. The flight to Osaka was worse than I feared. The passenger directly in front of me was a circus clown, and he turned out to be one of the most normal people on the flight.

The in-flight horrors began with a toddler in my row (but thankfully on the other side of the plane) who screamed the whole way to Japan. The child would only calm down when allowed to run the isles at will, but his mother seemed to protective to grant him more than a few minutes in the isles before grabbing him back up in her lap. Each time the toddler started crying again I heard the center seat passengers groan.

After the first meal was severed and the lights were turned off on the plane everyone tried to catch some sleep. Everyone except for one lady who thought she was onstage at a nightclub. She was singing country songs to all the passengers and between songs throwing in little comments like "Well, I know you all know this one" and "F*ck, am I the only one having any fun on this plane?" I deployed my earplugs, but they only managed to reduce the noises from the plane, leaving me free to concentrate on our nightclub singer. With each new song the middle of our row groaned louder.

Eventually the serenading stopped and I feel asleep. I later found out that the flight attendants had moved her to "keep an eye on her". They relocated her to first class. There's a lesson here about getting free upgrades.

About an hour before landing in Osaka, a lady from the other side of the plane walked over into the large open space by the exit where everyone queued to wait for the bathrooms and dropped her carry-on bag in the isle and just stood there until she attracted the attention of a flight attendant. "I want someone to search my bag" she demanded. After a long discussion with several flight attendants her story emerged. She distrusted the people sitting next to her and thought they were drug dealers. Since drug dealers are in the business of giving away drugs, I guess she thought theyÕd planted drugs in her carry-on bag. Finally, she (and her bag) were lead away to the front of the plane (first class again?), where I assume her bag was inspected.

The Osaka airport seemed incredibly clean and empty. However, I was tired of flying already and glad my layover was short. Boarding the Thai Airways flight to Bangkok reminded me of entering Indiana University's Musical Arts Center. Both are done up in a similar color scheme: purple, red, and green. IU's excuse is that a rich donor demanded those colors. I don't know what Thai Airway's excuse is.

However, the Thai Airways turned out to be excellent. I was seated in an exit row with lots of legroom, and the service and food were great. Still, I was glad to land in Bangkok, wait in line through immigrations, clear customs and find the free shuttle to my hotel.

Planes took off and landed all night long overhead, but I slept well, stretched out in a bed with no other passengers around to disturb me.