It was shocking how busy STX (Smog Town X) was on a Monday Morning! Lines. I waited in a lot of lines…From the time I stepped foot into the airport, to the time I was thru security, 2.5 hours had passed. In hindsight it was a blur – I mean, who wants to remember 2.5 hours of carrying over a hundred pounds of baggage in a stinky airport? Not me, I guess – the only thing I really DO remember though was that IN THE MOMENT, it most definitely was NOT a blur. I could have sworn it was 26.5 hours, rather than 2.5, but such is life…at least I got to be alive for what seemed like a whole extra day!
I made it to my gate just in the nick of time – about 1 minute before they closed the gate PHEW – I’m glad I didn’t stop for that bagel (it looked delicious though)! The flight to San Fran was pretty much gorgeous – it was a beautiful day, the coast was awesome – I was surprised by the layout of San Fran itself, though – the bay seems to permeate throughout the whole city, very strange. Just about every neighborhood has a silly little canal swept through everyone’s’ backyards connecting it to the bay. It reminded me of what Italy looks like in my imagination, kind of.
However, all good things soon enough turn bad, and “apparently” it was very windy in San Francisco. My plane was forced to loiter as all the runways were closed down except for the one going east and west (Nancy-pants pilots are afraid of cross-winds when landing). After a 15 – 20 minute delay, it was suddenly an emergency to make it to my next flight – you know, the one to Nihon that only leaves once a day?
As I stepped off the plane with 25 minutes to make my next flight, I began to descend into panic mode – there was, however, a kindly escort waiting to take the international passengers over yonder to the international terminal – she did a great job of calming me down and assuring me that my flight would not leave without me. She walked us calmly down to the shuttle that eventually arrived and took me to the international terminal. I heard my name on the intercom, so I tried to hurry along – with 60 pounds of carry-on luggage, however, the “hurry” part didn’t take too well. I arrived at the gate with 5 minutes to spare, but they told me that I could not get on the airplane.
They closed the door to the gate right in front of my face, and even though the plane was still sitting there, I was not allowed to get on. I have a tendency toward rage in situations like this, so I was forced to just walk away with smoke billowing out of my ears. I went to the washroom and washed my face – took a few moments to calm down before I went back out to attempt to fix the situation. I was informed that my new flight would reroute me through Narita (near Tokyo) early in the evening, and that I would connect down to Nagoya from there. No biggie, just 6 more hours onto my day.
At least this time I had the red carpet club. No more commoners. No more rubbish. As I entered, I received 2 coupons for free drinks – I also received a free wireless internet card, which I desperately needed in order to inform my relocation team that I would be arriving 6 hours late, well after business hours. It took forever, but eventually I got it all sorted out.
In the meantime, all of the old guys up there in the red carpet club decided that:
-they didn’t need their free drink coupons
-I am young
-I appear to be very stressed out
-I DO need their free drink coupons
Thank goodness for old guys! After a few drinks all of the anger and frustration melted away. I was glad for the opportunity to slow things down and enjoy my brief stay in San Fran. The red carpet club was pretty fun – lots of jolly people to talk to, very friendly staff, and an all-around air of pompous egotisticiality (oh, it’s a word) – my kind of place!
Once it came time to board my plane to Narita, I made sure and had several extra minutes to spare. I even had time to enjoy all of the free bagels that the red carpet club had to offer. I don’t know why I was so hungry. There were 8 bagels there, and when I was done devouring them, all that was left were a few rather comical crumbs on a delightful red napkin.
I rode on a Boeing 777 to Narita. The flight was great – I sat next to an American business man from L3 (I think). I forget what kind of rubbish he was into, but he was a pretty interesting fellow to sit next to. We had some interesting convos, but mostly I studied my Nihon-go and tried (unsuccessfully) to sleep. I hate to say that I was getting sick of being fed, but those bagels were sitting heavy in my stomach, and they fed me every 30 minutes. No, I wasn’t sick of it – I’ll never turn down delicious food!
I must have become very tired on the plane to Narita, because my memory after this point is quite foggy. I remember being surprised how easy it was to find the gate for my flight to Nagoya. I also remember drinking some trash called, “oriental flower resort.” I was in an adventurous mood, I guess. It was tea, who knew? (In hindsight, I’m really glad I didn’t go for the Pocari sweat, which was right next door to the flower resort. Had I chosen the sweat, I probably would have gotten on the next plane back to the US). All the signs are in Engrish in the airport, as well as Kanji (the crazy Nihon-se hieroglyphs), so it was easy enough to get around.
The flight to Nagoya was only a 45 minute flight. The taxi to the runway, however, was over an hour. For a second I thought the plane was just going to drive there. Seriously, it was totally ridiculous – the bullet train would have been WAY faster. The flight attendants were the first babes I saw in Nihon. They were breathtakingly gorgeous. They also had many pillows, blankets, food and beverages to offer for the 1 hour ride to Nagoya. I didn’t really get it, but who am I to turn down food, flower resort, and pillows?
When I touched down in Nagoya, I got to go through customs. In Nihon, the customs form has weird questions on it like, “are you carrying a samurai sword with you to Nihon?” Ok maybe that was the only weird question, but I had to find something to amuse myself in that line….Customs was also the first time I got to parallel Nihon with a science fiction movie. They take everyone’s’ fingerprints when you enter their country – everyone. They scan your passport as well and link it to your fingerprint. Pretty good idea, if you ask me.
Other than that, nothing really exciting happened – lots of people jibber-jabbering in a language I couldn’t understand a lick of. My expectations that everyone would pretty much speak Engrish were quickly shattered and stomped into the dust. Practically nobody here speaks any Engrish – save numbers, and hello….basically they know the same stuff in Engrish that I know in Nihon-go, so it doesn’t really help.
I met a cab driver to take me to my apartment. This was the first time I got to experience how gracious Nihon-jin are. He took all my bags and stuff, and insisted that I ride up the elevator while he carried it all up the stairs. I didn’t know how to say, “That’s absurd” in Nihon-go, so I just made the “that’s absurd” facial expression, grabbed half my bags and trudged up the stairs with him. He was only 5’2” and I’m pretty sure he would have hurt himself...
When we got outside he did this very funny, very penguin-like run back to the cab. It was only about 150 feet away, but he was really concerned that I would have to wait too long. He had to take a break about half way there, but after a few seconds he started sprinting again. He zoomed up to the curb at seriously 50 miles an hour. It kind of made me nervous, because I was standing close to the street. The cab ride was 200 bucks, which I guess was already paid for, since he didn’t ask for any money (Nihon-jin aren’t THAT gracious).
I arrived in my apartment and quickly went to sleep. It was a little after 10:00 pm Nihon time by the time I got to bed (6:00 am based on my old sleep schedule). I was beat! Got up at 6:00 the next morning to go to work!
Pics:
AIRPORT:
APARTMENT:
VIEW FROM THE BALCONY:
