Ok to start I'd like to thank everyone in the Japan section of this forum for all their assistance and advice is helping me set up this crazy trip, without them I wouldn't have been able to see or do what I did!

Now for some short info about me before you read through the report. I'm a 19 year old college student attending the University of South Florida in Tampa. Both my parents work for Delta Air Lines, previously Northwest. I've been interested in aviation since I was very small so flying is always an excitement, making the flying part of this long trip fun. A couple years ago I use to write up trip reports for every time I'd fly. It got to the point though that I would just continually go to the same places (Boise, Detroit, Atlanta, Boston, etc) so I stopped. Now that I'm a freshman in college I'm going to take advantage of my pass travel capabilities as much as I can until I turn 23 and no longer am allowed to fly such as I am now. So, I promise that every time I go somewhere new I'll be posting a trip report here. Some of you the hang out in the Asia and Europe forums prepare to see me somewhat often as I'll be planning trips such as this one in the future and hopefully will be able to get some great advise again. Enough about me personally, time to get to the interesting part.

I returned from a weekend trip to Boston after seeing the Red Sox on Sunday September 23. That day I returned I told myself it's time to go somewhere new. I wanted to go somewhere I hadn't seen before. So, I began searching through all the flight loads until I found Tokyo. I had been to Narita twice before but only to connect, so I knew I needed to see the city. So the decision was made, I'm going to Tokyo for the weekend. Luckily the dates worked out great. I happened to have no class that Friday I wanted leave and would return Sunday morning in Tampa. The planning began there, I had to make sure every minute was perfectly planned for the trip as this was my first international travel by myself. I needed to assure my parents and family that something like this can be done, especially if I want to do this for other destinations in the future. So now that we know how this all came up, how it was all planned, and why I even went, let's get on to the trip!

Tampa International Airport (TPA), Tampa, Florida
Friday, September 28, 2012 at 6:00AM

A buddy of mine dropped me off at TPA at about 6:00AM for my flight to New York's LaGuardia Airport. I quickly checked in and grabbed my boarding pass, spoke with some friends at the Starbucks in the terminal (tells you how often I'm there...), then made my way to the gate where my flight was going to depart from.


This flight was just what I expected. I was on the same exact flight exactly one week prior when I went to Boston with a friend. Only difference was I got first class on this one. Immediately after takeoff we were told we'd be landing early, which we did by about 20 minutes. We were then served breakfast which consisted of Cheerios and some fruit, then I fell asleep. Upon waking up the plane had begun descending into the rainy New York area. After landing the plane taxied to the Delta Terminal where my next step in the Tokyo adventure began.

New York LaGuardia International Airport (LGA), Flushing, New York
September 28, 2012 at 9:45AM

Landing in LGA was quite similar to every other time. I was hoping it wouldn't be raining when I going to transfer to JFK, but being my luck it was pouring. I was originally going to take a bus, subway, airtrain combo to get to JFK for $9, but for $10 I decided to take the shuttle straight there. LaGuardia was busy as usual so I was in a hurry to get out of there. It took us about 35 minutes to get to JFK due to traffic but I made it. The driver dropped me off at T3 and proceeded in.

New York John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Jamaica, New York
September 28, 2012 at 11:00AM

After checking in for my flight I decided to walk around Terminal 3. I had never been to JFK so it was something new for me, not that I was very impressed haha. I took a quick look around but decided to settle for lunch at Chilis Too. I had myself some soup and salad while I did some final research and double checking before leaving. After lunch I headed over to gate 6 where I saw Delta #173 for Tokyo-Narita.


This is definitely going down as one of my favorite flights. For one, I was able to get Business Elite, which I enjoy every time. Not only that, I was given a seat upstairs which, to me, is even better. I'm only going to say a little about the flight since the pictures will explain most of it. Before pushback the captain came on and detailed every small bit of the flight, literally. He gave us info of what runways we were going to use, where we'd fly over, how long it would be til we got food, etc. After takeoff we were quickly served the first course, and after about an hour we had dessert coming our way. I quickly fell asleep for a couple hours at that point. Around the time we got to Alaska I woke up, watched Prometheus, which was a terrific movie by the way, then fell asleep again not waking up until we began our descent into Narita. I had some great views of the area while landing but, I had one problem. This would come to be my only complaint of Delta's Business Elite seating on the 747. Instead of having your legs angled towards the aisle, they were angled towards the window which made it very hard to see out of. Overall, I had an excellent flight that I can assure you, didn't feel like 14 hours!