He says: Two words: Lounge Access. It's like a whole new world of enchantment and discovery.

Having flown economy for my whole life, I've never had the privilege of entering the hallowed halls of an excutive class lounge. Sure, I had heard the stories of lounges, a place where, in words of Jim Carrey, "the beer flows like wine." Let me tell you whatever stories you may have heard about executive class lounges are true. The chairs are more comfortable, the business centre provides free Internet acess and printing, the magazines are free, and there are...wait for it...showers! Best of all though, there is self-serve beer on tap. That's right, just go up grab a pint glass and go to town like Courtney Love on an international flight. I hear the pasta bar calling.

Next stop Tokyo!

- Matt

She says: We have finished 10% of our flights! 1 down, 9 to go.

We packed until late last night and I discovered I was missing medication, so we had to make a 12:30 a.m. trip to a 24-hour drugstore. Luckily, with my dad's help, we were able to get everything we needed. We also popped by the 24-hour Loblaws to pick up a new bathmat for our housesitter as our cat, the lovely Trixie Danger, has puked on and ruined six bath mats. There is very little carpeting in our house and she likes a little bit of traction for when she vomits, so she seeks out the bath mats. It's charming.

Kim and Paul picked us up this morning and dropped us at the Ottawa airport. When we tried to do the self check-in for the flight, we were listed as "standby". This was mysterious, so we waited in line for a representative, who was a really nice guy, as it turned out. He told us there was no problem and we were on the flight. He also saw that we were going to Tokyo and told us it's his favourite place and he's been there four times. He recommended doing a Hato (Japanes for Pigeon) Bus tour, which he said we needed to book ahead. More on that in a moment. He then bid us goodbye in Japanese. Luckily, I remembered/mimicked and replied, "Domo Arigato" and left out the "Mr. Roboto" part.

Once we were through security, which was a breeze because we packed all our liquids in clear plastic bags and Matt had no belt, I zipped off to get some drinks. While paying, I overheard our names on the PA and was a little worried. I returned to Matt at our gate who informed me that we were, after all, on standby. I was about to freak out when he passed me our new FIRST CLASS boarding passes! For those who don't know, 8 legs of our journey are already booked on Business class. This was one of the 2 flights that was supposed to be Coach. When they asked Matt if he would take the upgrade, they told him that they would not have enough meals to feed us breakfast on this less than an hour flight. We had no problem with that. We were whisked past the line and had priority boarding.

After settling into our enormous leather seats (we will be SO spoiled at the end of this!), we took off and the flight attendants brought us, with tongs, hot cloths. This is the life!

As it turned out, we did get served breakfast, with real utensils and a glass glass.
Despite both Matt and I battling ear problems - he has pretty chronic wax build up (gorgeous) and I have a crazy cold and congestion, the Lifesavers and Halls that we packed kept us from having any ear pain, or burst eardrums (as warned against by Uncle Mike Cooke).

The flight was smooth and totally comfortable. When we arrived at Toronto Pearson, we sought out the Business Class lounge and are now giddily using the free Internet, drinking free drinks, collecting free magazines (one of which features a university friend on the cover!) and debating whether to have a shower to dig in to the pasta buffet that has just been served up.

I searched up Hato tours and our timing doesn't work out to do one. Bummer. That leaves our 20 or so hours in Tokyo pretty open for wandering around and having adventures.

On the "Express" moving sidewalk, Matt said, "I really like being on holiday". I must say, I do too. Especially when it's first class!

-Shauna