I just woke up from my 5 hour nap after returning from my 6 day Asia trip at 5:30 this morning. I am amazed at how awake I feel, more on that in a few paragraphs. I tried desperately to get rescheduled while I was over there, calling our scheduling department 2 times at each stop, but no luck for me. I'll get rescheduled when I don't want to be. C'est la vie. But I did have some great experiences while I was there. Besides my awesome language encounter, I was able to check out Narita, Japan for the first time. Narita is about 40 miles outside of Tokyo and houses one of two airports serving the Tokyo area. The other one, Haneda, is closer to the city but doesn't serve as much traffic as Narita. Basically, if you are going to Japan for a visit, there wouldn't be a lot of reasons for you to stay in Narita, but if you are there for a 24 hour period it can provide a lot of entertainment. One thing that I was able to do was go to the Naritasan Shinshoji Temple which is a huge complex!
I had no idea how large it was when I went. It was a temple complex that feels like a park. It is set in the woods with beautiful ponds, teeming with koi and turtles, all around. And of course, there are temples. I spent an hour there just walking around and could have stayed longer. A few times a day they do a Goma, sacred fire ritual, in one of the temples. A Buddhist priest burns goma sticks in an offering to Fudomyoo, the main deity at the temple. Everything is in Japanese so be prepared to not understand anything, unless of course you read Japanese, but that didn't take away from the experience and beauty of the complex.
If you are in Nartia airport and want to get out and do something on a long sit you can take a train from the airport to Narita station. From there it is an easy 10-20 min walk to the temple down a street that has shops, food stores, cafes and restaurants. If you are lucky you may run into some Spaniards in a shop and get to practice your Spanish with them as I did. :-)
Now I thought I would share some tips for jet jag. I don't know if my body is just use to changing time zones now, but I don't get jet lag that bad anymore. Here's what I do.
#1 Stay up during the day!! This is super important. If you need to take a nap that's ok, but gage accordingly. I normally go to bed around 1am and get up at 10am so for me, if I get home at 7am I will nap until about 12 or 1pm then stay up until night time. But if I get in after noon then I may only take a 2 hour nap or even just power though and stay up till bed time. But the key is to not sleep during most of the day, no matter how hard it is.
#2 If you listened to #1 you should have no trouble falling asleep, but if you do take some melatonin. Some people say it doens't work for them, but for me it works great Melatonin is what you body produces naturally to tell you to go to sleep. Taking it helps tell your body it's sleepy time.
#3 Use an eyeshade and ear plugs if need be. I do this when I am not jet lagged, but it helps you to sleep more soundly. Remember, naturally, people are suppose to sleep when its dark and not around all this man made noise.
#4 Coffee, Tea and Vitamins B are your friends, but remember they can affect your sleep even if you are exhausted, so its best not to consume a lot of caffine a few hours before getting your 8+ hours of rest.
#5 Exercise, out in the sunshine if possible! Working out on a layover always helps me do better than the times I don't.
#6 Drink water! You should do this anyways, but it helps a lot too!
If none of these are working out for you, I'm sorry, but Netflix has a lot of great options for watching at 3 in the morning!
Sweet Dreams!
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