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Published: December 10th 2010
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Japanese Food!
Japan Airlines serves way better food than United! Sushi, teriyaki noodles and even dessert! Tokyo: A Gift From Above!
I mentioned in my previous blog entry how much I wanted to see Japan; so much so that I booked a flight that took longer and cost more, just so that I could pass through Japan! I was excited to be able to 'see' it, even though, (as I was informed by a family member) it wouldn't really
count as a visit to Japan if you were merely passing through the airport; you wouldn't go through customs or immigration, nor would you get a stamp on your passport from the great country. Oh well. Seeing it from the plane was at least something, right?
In the O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, I sat across from a young man in an Army uniform in the waiting area for our gate. (I'm always drawn to that uniform; it is synonymous with Billy for me right now, and it always evokes a rush of emotion for me to see it.) This time it was a happy feeling, rather than a sad one, knowing I was just hours away from being reunited with my love! I did, however, feel a tinge of sadness for the family of this
Descending Out of the Clouds
Although this isn't Tokyo that we're looking down on, you get the idea... (remember, I didn't have a camera with me, but found these pics on Billy's camera) young man (who bore the name "Romero" on his uniform) as I realized that he was embarking on the same trip Billy had taken to South Korea five months earlier, leaving behind a slew of loved ones, most of who would not see him again for at least a year.
After a rather long layover in Chicago (a little over four hours), we were finally boarded and on our way to Japan! The take-off was very similar to the take-off from Tampa, except that it was less cloudy, so even after we broke through the cloud cover, there were vast, open cloudless areas where you could see all the way to the ground. It was invigorating and beautiful to see so much of the state of Illinois all at once! Having grown up in Illinois, I had expected to see a lot of snow there, knowing it was December, and recollecting all of those winters in fifth through eighth grades where I delivered my newspaper route, 'rain, sleet, snow, or shine.' But there was no snow in Chicago on
this December day. "
Oh well," I sighed to myself, "
maybe there will be snow in Japan or Korea!"
A Little Closer
Coming a little closer to the ground... can see more detail I sat next to a very nice Chinese couple who were on their way to Bangkok, and the woman was pretty fluent in English, and was also studying Japanese, which she said is even harder to learn than English. She had flash cards with her that she was studying and noticed me studying out of my book of Korean words.
There was very little turbulence on the flight, though we were sent to our seats several times for
slight turbulence. Having had coffee throughout the morning, and then soda on the flight, I was itching to use the bathroom during our first period of turbulence that kept us seat-belt bound. As soon as the seat-belt lights went off, I looked to my Chinese neighbors on my left but both were sleeping soundly. Ugh. Window seats are a blessing for every reason except for when you really need to use the bathroom! My politeness won out over my need to use the restroom, and I was able to hold it until they woke up for lunch.
It was a grueling twelve and a half hour flight (just from Chicago to Tokyo) and getting any sleep was next to impossible,
Looks Like a Bustling City
This flight was going to Jejudo Island; a big tourist hot-spot past the southern tip of South Korea what with the cramped conditions and the seating position being almost completely upright. If you
were lucky enough to be able to doze off, you would be wakened before too long with a numbed limb, having fallen asleep on you. This was made even worse by the fact that I had forced myself to stay awake all night the night before the flight so that I could sleep on the plane and get myself acclimated to the Korean time schedule, which is fourteen hours ahead of our US/Eastern time zone.
I was exhausted when we touched down in Tokyo, but managed to take in the 'sights' from my window seat. Lots and lots of fields/farmland for such a developed country! I am guessing these were largely rice paddies, since Asia is known for this crop. There were also areas of development, of course, with the modern skyscrapers and such, looking very similar to Atlanta, Georgia, or New York City. There were also a lot of smaller, low-level buildings with metal roofs, which gleamed in the sunlight.
From the air, I wasn't able to see anything distinctly 'Asian' in architecture, and that was a little bit disappointing, but hey...
Japanese Magazine
The only picture I got of my hotel room. The rest was video, which I can't retrieve right now at least I had 'seen' Japan, right? And now I was within five hours of Billy and our much-anticipated reunion! I was excited about that, and ready to jump on the next airplane. However, as I exited this particular flight, there was a Japanese lady in an airline uniform, greeting all of us as we stepped into the building, but with a very disturbing message. In Japanese, and then in broken English, she explained that Flight 891 to Incheon/Seoul, South Korea had been canceled and those passengers were to proceed to a United desk for further information.
I was devastated! I had never been out of the country on my own, and was very nervous about it to begin with. I had made sure that Billy would be able to meet me at the Incheon Airport in South Korea so that he could ease my anxiety and I would know where to go from there. But what about now!? I was going to be stranded in a foreign country with no idea how many hours or days I would have to spend in the airport before they would find room on an alternative flight. How was I going to
A Japanese Road Sign
On the way to the Airport deal with this on almost zero sleep in the past forty eight hours (and I simply can not sleep in the airport, on display for everyone, and with my purse and carry-on luggage wide open for anyone to take!)
In addition, how much of my precious time with my husband was I going to lose being stranded here? And how would I get ahold of Billy and let him know that I wasn't going to be at the airport when he expected me, and would it be possible to save him the two-hour trip from his Army base to the airport? And how would I eat and drink during all this time? I had very little cash on me, and none of it was Yen (the Japanese currency.) Would they take my debit card from the US? I had no idea...
So, imagine my surprise--and how ecstatic I was--to find out that United Airlines was committed to ensuring we were quite well taken care of during this unforeseen interruption in our travel plans. They booked us into an extremely nice hotel (Hotel Nikko Narita) for the night, with a free shuttle service to and from the airport, meal vouchers for dinner that night and for breakfast the next morning, an early morning flight on Japan Airlines, checking in at 7:40 am and departing by 9:40 am, with an entire evening and early morning to 'see' Japan... oh, and a real, true visa stamp from the country, showing that I had
officially been to Japan, not just
passed through! 😱
Is God good or what???
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