This could get long so I am splitting this story in several parts.
It’s been 8 years since I’ve been in Japan, and our first trip as a family to Japan.
Flying with my daughter has always been surprisingly fabulous. She sleeps, hangs out in the seat, and just chills. But this time it’s not that 4~5 hour flight to San Diego, it’s a 1 hour flight to Newark, 3 hour wait until the next flight, then a 13 hour flight to Narita (Tokyo, Japan), 2 hour bus ride, then the one and a half hour car ride to Mt. Fuji. A lot longer.
Our day started at 4 am (Eastern Time) and ended at 6 am (Eastern Time) = 26 hours.
10:30pm, we go to bed. An hour later than when we really wanted to, but we had to get all of our bags to weigh less than 40 lb. I’ve been packing and getting ready for this trip for a week! Making sure I had everything I need and not more than what I need. Packing for 2 months is kind of hard. Luckily we are flying to a country that has everything, if we forgot anything.
Packing carry-on for toddlers takes a lot of thinking. Let’s go over my list:
- Laptop with toddler games (Sesame Street), DVD’s in a small CD case, and head set.
- Playdough (pack of 3, $1) with plastic knife and fork (disposable, just in case they lose it, it doesn’t matter)
- Crayons and coloring book. Compliments of the Mazda dealership)
- Stickers, to stick anywhere. Thank you Whole foods for all the free stickers!
- Lots of small snacks, salty to the savory. Not too many sweets or they will be so hyper that they won’t stay in their seats.
- Sweatshirt for the cold flight.
- An extra set of clothing. Just in case of an accident.
- Night time diapers, so you don’t have to freqent the bathroom to change them.
- Ear Planes. For air pressure relief. & a echinacea sucker for strengthening immune system and pressure relief.
- And a secret life saver. One fun toy that you don’t let your child know that you bought, and bust it out when you ran out of everything and you need something. I got her a few pets from the Pet Shop collection.
That’s all that was in Zu’s bag for this flight.
Our other carry on (since I read the itinerary wrong and thought they ONLY served lunch on this 13 hour flight), we packed grapes, bananas (you can buy fruit at the airport but they tend to be over priced), sandwiches, a couple onigiri, snacks, candy, neck pillows, eye mask, ear plugs, thick socks, poncho (can be used to wear or as a blanket), books, sudoku (get a gel pen, they usually don’t explode on flights), plug adapter for laptop (most of the time you need a EmPower adapter, you can find one at Target for about $40 in the electronics section), camera, and toiletry kit.
Our alarm clock went off at 3:30am. John (my husband) tells me that we have 30 more minutes until we have to wake up. So Not True!! We had to leave in 30 minutes to check in for our flight at 6:40am. He’s lucky I’m one of those people who can’t really fall back asleep after once waken up.
We get ready, Johns friend comes to pick us up. 3:50am get Zu (our daughter) and put her in the car. We packed most of the stuff in the car the night before. Smart way to travel if your leaving on a Red Eye or some thing super early like our flight. We got out of the house with practically no delay.
Now here’s a menu for some carry on food that I packed.
Onigiri (rice ball) for 2+toddler
- 1 and 1/4 cup frozen rice nuked.
- Salt & pepper
- Tuna
- Vinegar (you can use tuna, but I don’t recommend it for long flights)
- Sugar
- Soy Sauce
- Scallions finely chopped
- Sea Weed
In a bowl mix 2 tbsp tuna or salmon, 1/2 tsp vinegar, 1/2 tsp soy sauce, 1/4 tsp sugar, scallions and salt & pepper to taste.
Take 1/2 cup rice, make a little ball wrapping the 1/3 of the tuna mixture. Wrap with sea weed.
Repeat with 1/2 cup rice, and finally with 1/4 cup rice for toddler.
Very yummy and very satisfying for a small snack. Here’s a link to How To Video.
This is all for prepping for that International flight. This is “PreRestless in 26 hours”.
Continues….
