Kadena Air Force Base - Day 1 & Day 2

As promised-- here is my "daily" update from Japan. We arrived safe and sound into Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, Japan. Now I have had two full days on the base and have all kinds of little things to report from here in mini-America.

Let's start at the beginning... we had some drama leaving Champaign and attempting to get to Colorado Springs. We were set up to take a shuttle from Champaign to O'Hare airport... six of us with a months supply of luggage, 6 racing chair boxes...6 everyday chairs etc. The shuttle pulled up at DRES just fine at 4 AM with...a mini-trailer. Not the one we had hand picked. Drama #1. Can we fit? Well, I'll have you know that we are some expert packers and managed to fit all of our stuff, bodies, and wheelchairs into this van and mini-trailer. But wait, we had to pick up another passenger. No big deal, we can sit three to a seat, the back seat was filled with everyday chairs, the front bench seat was filled with a racing chair box that wouldn't fit in the mini-trailer and the lone passenger can have the front seat. No biggie. Drama averted.

But wait, there are two more passengers to pick up --- even though we were supposed to have the shuttle to ourselves the way it was booked... Well, there's literally no more room in the van or trailer. The driver contacted his boss who does not quite fathom the volume of stuff or what the stuff is that we are transporting. There's about an hour of back and forth trying to figure out what to do. The initial result: we'll just drop this party of 6 with all this luggage off on the side of the road, because nobody should have that much stuff and the other passengers need to be picked up. Are you kidding me???? Nope. So we reluctantly started unloading, not at the same place where we had been picked up, on the side of the road at 5am. As we were just about done with the everyday chairs, the boss changed his mind and we were allowed to proceed to chicago.

We arrived in Chicago, with 45 minutes to go before our flight, with a ton of luggage... so needless to say, we didn't make that flight. But, all the other flights directly into Colorado Springs were booked up, so we had to go to Denver instead and catch a small plane into Colorado Springs. We were convinced our luggage wouldn't make it. Luckily, (for us) United made sure all of our stuff made it on the little plane, too bad for the other passengers that nobody else's stuff made it...

Arrived in Colorado Springs about 4 hours later than expected. And this is where the team processing begins. What is team processing? You enter into this warehouse room and are given a shopping cart and you go around to different stations and try on clothing to figure out your sizes. XS in the pants (even those are too big), S or M in shirts depending on the size, don't forget the Ralph Lauren blazer and blouse for the opening ceremonies. And then you take all the stuff to the tailor who then makes sure everything fits just right. The whole ordeal is very exciting. This is also the first time we had seen each other as a team since trials, so everybody was catching up with each other. Swimming was there processing as well and some of the cycling team was there training as well. Basically, the excitement level was through the roof. The Olympic Training Center during the Olympics and as the Paralympians are gearing up to leave -- it doesn't get much more exciting than that.

Saturday morning after some re-packing and shipping extra stuff home, we piled into a DC-10 at Peterson Air Base / Colorado Springs and left. The US Department of Defense graciously offered to host us for a week of training at Kadena Air Force Base. They took care of our flight and everything. By that I mean, we were in a 300+ passenger plane with ~100 of us on board -- so we each got 2-3 seats to ourselves to stretch out and sleep. We stopped over in Anchorage, Alaska to refuel and then on to Okinawa.

Our arrival... wow. We were greeted by a huge military entourage, similar to or more than the amount of people that come to greet the President we are told. A lot of cute guys, of course some women as well, balloons attached to the giant lifts to unload us all. It was quite the operation. We were brought directly to our room to drop off our carry on baggage and then whisked off to dinner at the Officer's Club. At dinner we were given a briefing of what to expect while we were here, to look out for the Habu snakes among other things. Meanwhile, our Air Force friends found all of our checked luggage and equipment and brought it up to our rooms while we ate!

Went to bed, and got up the next day to re-assemble our equipment and let the training begin. The food has been incredible. Breakfast and Lunch are these huge buffets with a little bit of everything you could possibly want. All the meals were also pre-planned with a dietician from the USOC so things are nice and healthy too. We all are paired up with "sponsors" who are men/women stationed here on the base and are basically there for whatever we possibly could need. My sponsor is Tamika from Minnesota. She and her husband and I are going out for dinner this evening. I'm looking forward to it! Yesterday we also scoped out the BX (kinda like a walmart) and the Commissary (grocery store) on base.

The weather... it's HOT and HUMID. They told us it would be, but wow. It's about 85 degrees here with 90-95% humidity. You feel like you've just walked into a steam room the second you walk outside. I mean, we are on an island in the pacific.... Today we trained out on the perimeter road of the base, it was nice and toasty. It felt good though. I'm feeling stronger than ever and am looking forward to the rest of the week of training. They say Beijing will be similar... a little less hot, but probably equally as humid. I am off this afternoon and am just enjoying the air conditioning and relaxation. Until next time...

Anjali