Travel, travel, and more hours of travel

I left Wednesday morning and took a 13 hour flight from DFW to Tokyo and then connected to a 7 hour flight from Tokyo to Ho Chi Minh City. Needless to say, 21 hours of flying time is A LOT! But I can't really complain...I had several things in my favor to make it a bit easier! My dad was awesome enought to upgrade me to business class for the DFW-Tokyo leg, and I had the coolest seat that reclined from a seat to a 'lounger' to a bed. They gave me a comfy blanket (not your typical American Airlines blue gross thing), served me delicious meals, brought me drinks whenever I wanted, and made the trip seem pretty easy. I had my own TV, and I watched 12 episodes of the office in row. I'm obsessed. I tried to watch 30 Rock or whatever that's called (I gave it my best shot Zach), but couldn't get into it. I slept a bit but not much.
We finally got to Tokyo and I found my gate with plenty of time to spare (I was a little nervous only having an hour layover). I had brought some Japanese Yen, and I didnt have time to buy sushi (bummer!), but I at least got a bottle of water. I sat next to a really nice guy who was born and raised in Vietnam and moved to Michigan 19 years ago. He was going back to see his 4 year old son for the first time since he was born and he brought him a huge transformers set which I thought was cool. I digress. I had saved my iPhone battery for this flight since I didn't have my own TV (actually I did, but mine was broken), and I watched a bunch of episodes of Mad Men (thanks Lisa!!!). I'd never watched it before, so something new and exciting was the perfect distractor to keep me from realizing how tiny my seat was.
So, I get to the airport, find my bags, go through immigration and 'customs' (which dont really exist here), and walked into the strangest sight ever. The airport exit was lined with people meeting their traveller. But I'm talking about 600 people all pushing, shoving, waving signs, and quickly speaking Vietnamese. The other 2 or 3 tourists all pulled out their cameras to take pictures...mine was unfortunatly tucked at the bottom of my backpack. I cant describe it, but it was crazy (think fans lined up along the red carpet...I legitimately felt like a celeb). Amongst the pushing and shoving, I spotted a sign with my name, pointed to it, and met Linh (Hang, my program coordinator's, hustband) beyond the crowds. He grabbed me stuff, gave me a paper with the house address and his cell phone number, and went to get his moterbike to follow. I think that's how the airport scene went, but it was so quick and chaotic I'm not really sure.