Year: 2008

“Would you the chicken or pasta?” the steward asks passengers. I begin to shake at the prospect of airline food. It’s one of the world’s true atrocities. Honestly, who else can make a strawberry taste bad?

The trip begins amid a mass of people — chaos as thousands of travelers search their luggage for three-ounce bottles of liquids in “zip-top” bags and laptop computers so they can be scrutinized separately by airport security.

My eyes caught the clock: 8 p.m. That makes it 9 a.m. Tokyo time. That means I’m leaving at the end of the day — Japan time.