Planes, Trains, and Travel Pains

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My holidays started with a nice dinner among friends at No No Budo, a local favourite offering an all-you-can-eat buffet of organically produced Japanese foods. After completely stuffing ourselves to the point of bursting if we were to eat a wafer thin, I came to the conclusion that the term “all-you-can-eat” is a little misleading. No one eats all they can eat at an all-you-can-eat buffet. More accurately, they eat all they can, plus a little more. Thus the term should be recoined to be "a-little-more-than-you-should-eat" buffet. Having done exactly that, I was feeling rather ill and was faced with the choice of pulling my customary all-nighter prior to holiday departure or the highly desired option of going to bed. I opted for the latter, a very wise decision in retrospect.

Fortunately, (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) because of the ankle sprain which kept me at home for the better portion of the previous week, I had a good percentage of my packing and other departure preparations completed. So Saturday morning Japan time I was able to put the finishing touches on the packing and my other assorted departure tasks with a whole minute to spare before I needed to head off to the tram stop. The dishes, regrettably, did not get done prior to departure, but I trust the cockroach family I share my flat with will take care of the food scraps for me.

The first major leg of the journey home was a 5 hour bus ride to the city of Osaka and its international airport. The ride was fine. With the exception of the first hour, I had a seat to myself and was therefore able to stretch out in the otherwise too cramped bus. True to the unwritten law of Japanese travel, we made several stops along the way at various road-side rest stops. I strongly resisted the urge to purchase offensively cute Hello Kitty souvenirs for my enemies at these stops. Rather, I spent most of the time at these frequent rest stops, as well as on the bus, listening to music. Barricaded expressways eventually gave way to towering skyscrapers and we pulled into Osaka station around our scheduled arrival time. A little over five hours of traveling and no crazy stories of almost missing connections, crazy people in the seat next to me, or vehicles breaking down. In other words: so far, so good.

Certainly most visitors and likely a good proportion of locals will tell you that Osaka has the most complex, bizarre, labyrinthine, and just downright confusing network of train stations in all Japan. Add to this the fact that the stations of Osaka are what a lot of westerners picture when we think of Japan: busy, bustling, wall to wall people. As such, it is not the kind of place that is easily negotiable at the best of times, and the difficulty factor is exponentially increased when you're towing a year and a half's worth of stuff behind you. It inevitably came to a point where I had to forget my polite Canadian sensibilities and plunge headlong into the deluge. If you were in my way, you were getting run over without prejudice. Thus cleaving my way through the crowds like Anduril the Flame of the West through the hosts of Mordor, I made it to my platform and onto the express train to Kansai International Airport.

On the train, it was, of course, standing room only for most of the hour long trip to the airport. Not bad. I could handle that. Besides, as Kelsey said later when I recounted my whole, long, sorry tale to her, it was all part of the normal Japanese experience. And she was right. I was now seven hours into the journey home and still nothing out of the ordinary had happened. For a fleeting moment, I allowed myself to think about how nice it was going to be to party with Kelsey and her physics buddies once I got into Montreal. I should have known better than to start thinking such thoughts. As soon as I approached the United Airlines counter for check-in the fun started.

No matter how many times I checked and re-checked my e-ticket, I was still scheduled to leave on the flight that was posted as being 2 ½ hours delayed (I use the term “scheduled” lightly, for at this time I was under the assumption that I was indeed “scheduled” to be on the flight). This delay meant I would miss my connecting flight to Montreal. Visions of partying with Kelsey and her friends vanished from my mind. “No,” I said to placate myself, “it may only be a fool's hope, but I may yet be able to get to Montreal in time for the party, depending on what I can get for connections.” So I waited patiently. First in the security clearance line to enter the check-in area, then in the actual line for check-in, all the while silently suffering the asinine comments from several Marines on their way home from Okinawa who were quite obviously put out by the delay. Yes, it was horrible enough that the flight was delayed, worse still that it would be full of Marines.

Upon finally reaching the check-in counter, however, I would have gladly given anything to be on the flight with the obnoxious Marines. My flight booking, it seemed, had been lost to the void of cyber-space. It was mysteriously showing up on the computer as having been canceled. I was of course confused. After all, I had the piece of paper my travel agent gave me along with his repeated assurances that is was the only document other than my passport that I would need for check-in. Plus, I knew for a fact that I had not canceled my flight, nor had I instructed my travel agent to do so. To help clear my confusion, the check-in agent kindly escorted me to the United Airlines ticket counter where the ticket agent repeated the same information about my flight booking being canceled. I wasn't panicking yet though. Not even when the ticket agent halfheartedly tried to contact my travel agent with, predictably, no success. It was at this point I recalled my last visit to Kansai International Airport back when Mom, Judy and I were leaving for Korea. At that time, I had to pick up my ticket from a sales representative from my travel agency. Maybe my travel agency, IACE Travel, still had a sales representative here who'd be able to help me. I informed the ticket agent of this but she was skeptical and made of point of telling me this. “No, I don't think they do,” she replied. I still wasn't panicking. I've lived in Japan long enough to know that “no” means a couple of things. One meaning is the conventional definition we're all well and truly familiar with, the one your mother used when you were a kid and really, really wanted that awesome sweet USS FLAGG GIJOE battle station with real working megaphone. This kind of “no” is seldom used in Japan. The other, more common meaning of “no” is roughly the same as “I don't know but am too ashamed to say so, so I'll just say no to make this person go away.” I politely reiterated my feeling that there indeed was an IACE Travel representative in the building. Maintaining her facade of skepticism, the ticket agent likewise reiterated her feeling, adding that in the unlikely event that I find my travel agency, I might be able to purchase a new ticket for the flight if there were any available seats left.

As fortunes go, mine were looking up. Amidst my travel papers, I found the airport map my travel agent had given me for my previous trip and easily found the X marked IACE Travel. And there was someone there. And there was no line. I carefully and slowly explained my situation to the representative. I showed her all my documents. She looked at them and carefully and slowly explained to me that I needed to take these documents to the United Airlines check-in counter. My patience did not waver. Once again I carefully and slowly repeated what I had just told her, this time specifically emphasizing the part about how I had already done that and that's why I was now standing at her counter. The lightbulb went on. For all the negative things I say about Japan, I have to admit that customer service in the country is often second to none (one United Airlines ticket agent notwithstanding). When the IACE Travel representative understood my plight, she was right on the phone to my travel agent in Hiroshima. Following a brief conversation between her and the Hiroshima office which I couldn't understand, I was told that my travel agent wasn't available, but he'd get in touch with me soon. “Okay. No problem,” I reassured myself. But the panic metre, in reality, was starting to bleep.

The wait to hear back from my travel agent was harder than waiting in the check-in line with the Marines. Finally, after an indeterminably long period of time which seemed longer than it probably was, the IACE Travel representative brought me her cell phone. I subsequently explained the situation to my travel agent, going over twice the part where I had already tried going to the check-in counter. Blaming the infamous computer glitch, he promised to do his best to fix the problem and call me back when he had done so. It was back to playing the waiting game.

The original flight time had, at this point, come and gone. I was therefore rather fortunate that the flight was delayed, but now the rescheduled flight time was creeping closer and I still had no ticket and no idea of how long I would have to wait before my travel agent fixed the mess. At last I was ready to admit that I was moving up the panic metre rather rapidly. However, in the process of mentally drafting my strongly worded letter to IACE Travel, I was paged to the United Airlines ticket counter. I breathed a heavy and profound sigh of relief when I was informed that my ticket would be ready in half and hour and yes, that would be enough time to clear customs and make my boarding call.

I killed that half hour by touring around the shopping concourse, for one last time taking in the sights of ramen noodle restaurants and omiyage shops (Japanese souvenir stores) hawking every kind of Hello Kitty paraphernalia imaginable. Once again I resisted the urge to torment my enemies with pendants of an oh-so-sickening Hello Kitty dressed as a bear, or a dog, or some other absurd variation. When the half hour passed, I returned the the ticket counter, got my ticket, won the random luggage check lottery, repacked my bags, cleared customs, boarded the plane, and bid sayonara to Japan.

For my patience and perseverance in the face of adversity, karma rewarded me with a seat to myself for the eleven hour flight. I didn't have to put up with sitting next to an idiot Marine as I originally feared. Without a seatmate, I was able to stretch out as much as is humanly possible in economy class. In addition to the extra leg room, I was also treated to those little back-of-the-seat monitors. The flight, therefore, passed pleasantly enough. I watched three movies, none of which were very remarkable (was Cinderella Man really nominated for an Oscar? Why?), and caught a little sleep. Soon enough we touched down at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, and I was so tantalizingly close to Home.

Back at No No Budo, several hours prior to my landing in Chicago, Ben had shared with us his belief that the United States was becoming a police state. With my arrival at O'Hare, I began to understand what Ben was talking about. There is an absurd amount of rigermoral passengers have to go through just to change planes. Now I will confess that my recollection of traveling through the States in the past is a little vague, so I can't say for certain if it has always been so ridiculous, but in all my recent travels through Asia, I have never had to go through such strict protocols.

Making connections in Singapore or Bangkok or Taiwan was a breeze. My luggage was checked all the way through to my final destination and my biggest concerns were finding the gate for my connecting flight and filling in the hours until departure. Not so in Chicago. First I had to clear immigrations, which was silly because I had no intension of staying in the US. Plus I had to fill out a customs declaration card for goods that weren't going to be staying in the US either. After clearing immigration and customs, I had to pick up my luggage because the airline wasn't going to be nice and check may bags all the way through to Montreal. So I collected my luggage and took it to the United Airlines counter where I checked it in yet again. Then I had to go through security once more because I guess I might have somehow acquired some dangerous item on the flight from Osaka that security officials there missed. This security check, however, was the most intense security check I've ever had the disdain of experiencing. I was unceremoniously asked to remove everything down to my shirt, pants, and socks. That they let me keep that much was a shock. Once I was told I'd have to remove my sweater and my shoes and put those through the x-ray machine along with my carry-on, I was half expecting to be lead to a corner and asked to strip before the hose was turned on me, following which I'd be handed a pair of orange coveralls. I've thankfully never been to prison, but for anyone who has, I'd like to ask if it's any different from an American airport.

Having finally decided that I was not a threat to Homeland Security, airport officials granted me access to the departure terminal. After completing the long and unnecessary procedure of going through immigration, customs, and security, in addition to re-checking my baggage, I thanked my good fortune that I had enough time to spare to make my connecting flight. Some of my traveling companions, whom I met in the various lines associated with all of the above, unfortunately were not so lucky, and voiced their displeasure whenever opportunity presented itself. I sympathized to certain extend, but as I had the luxury of time (owing, ironically, to the delay of my flight from Osaka), I couldn't complain too much. My boarding call was in 20 minutes. Hallelujah, I'd be Home soon.

Imagine how shattered I was then, when looking at the departures board for my gate assignment, I learned that my flight to Montreal would also be delayed for 2 ½ hours. Oh the joys of traveling. Seeing as I'd be spending my evening at O'Hare International Airport and not in Montreal partying with Kelsey and her physics buddies, I made my first mission finding a phone so I could inform her of this fact. This mission was completed quite quickly and successfully; however, I was somewhat lacking in American coinage to place the call. I hadn't intended on staying in Chicago for more than the time it took to change planes, so why bring American currency? So there I was, in front of a phone that didn't take credit cards (we have those in Canada, why not the US?), with no coins and no calling card, all the money changers closed for the day, and a sister in Montreal expecting my plane to get in at, oh, now. Thankfully Kelsey accepted the collect call I humbly placed. I explained my situation, told her to go and have fun and the party her friends had organized to welcome me to Montreal, and made plans to get in touch again if I ever made it Montreal. While explaining my situation to Kels, her friend Marjorie overheard my pitiful tale and suggested I find a bar and a bottle of beer to crawl into. Funny. Kelsey never mentioned that Marjorie was telepathic.

I made allusions earlier to American airports and prison. At the time I felt it was me who was in the role of the criminal, but after ordering a beer at Chili's Bar, I decided the criminals were the ones who figured it was acceptable to charge $6.50 American for a pint of beer. Under normal circumstances, I would have cringed at that price, but I really needed a beer. Plus I was arriving from Japan and was therefore somewhat accustomed to paying that much for a premium beer. And hey, as long as I was getting one, I might was well get another, and why not a Chili's cheesesteak sandwich to go with it.

If it was not already blatantly obvious I was no longer in Japan by the lack of Japanese signage and friendly customer service, then the arrival of my cheesesteak sandwich would have definitely confirmed it. No meager Japanese sized serving here. There was a mountain of fries, and the cheese was piled so thick I thought I'd sooner need an ambulance than an airplane. Oh that was some good eating. So greasy and unhealthy. I felt all that weight I sweated out during long, hot and humid summers in Japan immediately come back to me. Yes, I was back in North America, and as soon as I finished watching the sports highlights, my pint, and the last of the cheesesteak sandwich, I settled up and left for my gate.

Those couple of beers and the cheesesteak sandwich made everything better. My plane pulled out at midnight and arrived in Montreal at 3:00 am local time to an almost deserted Trudeau International Airport. I placed my call to Kelsey, interrupting her poutine feast. But she happily agreed to come and get me along with Marjorie. All was set. I made my way to the quiet immigration area. Here I discovered that I was the last person to come through. Even the pilot of the flight I was one had already been and gone. The immigration officer herself was getting ready to close up for the evening before I happened along. Not wanting to speculate as to what would have happened had I been two minutes later, I thanked my vacillating fortune for this small gift and handed over my documentation. I quickly become aware of the sharp contrast between security in Canada and Fort America. The immigration officer was deciding what title to bestow upon me after my year and a half away before she settled on Returning Resident. To confirm her decision, she called to two passing colleagues who were on their way to clock out. One of them looked at me and as if formulating the amount of paper work I might entail, asked if I had any items coming into Canada other than the luggage I brought with me. I said no, she shrugged, looked at the on-duty officer and said, “Skip 'em.” I responded with a hearty, “sounds good to me,” received my freshly stamped documents and parted with a friendly, “let's all go home.” It was all a breeze after that. Weary airport staff at the end of their long shifts looking forward to getting some sleep kept waving me through and I was out into the arrival lobby in no time. The lesson I learned from this is if you don't want hassles at the airport, plan your arrival so it occurs between the hours of 1-5 am.

And so the journey ended, thirty three hours after leaving my pad in Hiroshima, reunited with Kelsey whom I hadn't seen for far too long, back in the Land of the True, North, Strong, and Free. Canada. I'm Home. It feels good to say it. But after a year and a half of waiting for this moment, I have to say, It feels better to live it.

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Photos

Goodbye Hiroshima
A shot of the Atomic Bomb Dome taken on the author's last night in Hiroshima before heading home for the holidays. It will be a while before he sees this sight again.

Hondori Street
The famous shopping arcade in Hiroshima all decorated with pretty lights. Also taken on the author's last night in Hiroshima.

The Gang at No No Budo
The paparazzi caught the Author, Anne, Chad, Brian, and Ben at No No Budo, a popular Hiroshima eatery. The Author indicates seating for five while Ben asks if there’s a booster seat available.

The Gang at No No Budo 2
The Author demonstrates to all doubters that, yes, he can use chopsticks.

Ben's Custard Addiction
A recovering custard snorter, Ben had a relapse at No No Budo. Concerned friends are planning an intervention.

O'Hare Airport
What was air travel like before full scale models of Brontosaurus skeletons revolutionized the industry?

O'Hare Airport 2
...or for that matter, psychedelic lighting?

O'Hare Airport 3
It was Sani-seat, however, that truly revolutionized modern air travel, bringing airports hygienically into the 21st century.

Chili's Cheesesteak Sandwich
Big beers, big fries, and big sandwiches! It could only mean that the Author has arrived in America.

Comments

[Crazy Uke]

Bievenue!
Well, Okenada, its great to finally have you back in the land of the CFL and hockey. Don't forget to ring up your Edmonton buddies when you arrive.

[Robert Davis]

From one friend to another
To Ohkenada...a citizen of one of America's greatest friends and allies...Canada. (not) Your friend... A Marine in Okinawa, Japan