Finally

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Hello and welcome. I've been state-side for some time now, however, I still want to share with you as much of my trip as I can recall. I would have liked to report while it was happening, but it was just too exciting, and I was in no mood to slow down, or to spend money on the internet or time at an internet cafe. Of course, those few statements are enough to start making the memories come flooding back, but I'm gonna try and be dilligent in the recital of events as they happened, because even though we've been back for a month and a half, the memory still feels very fresh, and this is an awesome way for me to relive all the events of the trip. So, with that said, let's start with the story....

Day One: Paradise delayed

So our flight from O'hare was scheduled to leave around noon. We woke up very early to finish packing and to give ourselves enough time to get to the airport. I usually don't get to the airport very far ahead of schedule, but we were very excited about the travelling, and we both had no objections to just waiting in an airport for a couple of extra hours. Any way we could make the trip more relaxing, I thought, would make the trip easier, especially this first leg of the journey, because we had a massive flight ahead of us, a really wierd time change, and we would be arriving late night into Bangkok... around 11:30 at night. So, we got to O'hare, glided through security, found our gate, and then I checked the departure board.....our flight was delayed by 5 HOURS! Ugh.... So now, instead of spending an extra 2.5-3 hours at the airport, we'd be spending 8+ hours... which for most people is a typical work day, isn't it? Our airline, United, did a horrible job with communicating the issue to it's passengers, was disorganized in the changing of gates, and was understaffed to accomodate the situtation. To exascerbate things, after hours of waiting, it felt like a mad dash to board the plane, with the barest of communication attempts made to ease the process, and a detached gate attendant handing out a typed form letter in an envelope that was supposed to be some sort of an apology and voucher for some sort of compensation. As if United were bribing me. Needless to say I didn't redeem the apology for the voucher. If the voucher was of some significant value, such as a free flight, I still would not have accepted it, because United was a poor example of an airline. In my opinion, it is no surprise that they are/were on the verge of bankruptcy. Let them fail. I digress....

We finally boarded, and settled in for a long journey. Jen somehow, proceeded to sleep for almost the entire duration of our first leg to Japan. The trip was about 18 hours long. Maybe less. I'm not really sure, because with all the time changes... and the date change, and chasing the sun around the globe, it's really easy to loose track of time. So we ended up approaching Japan around 11:00 at night, on what day, I can't really say. We left on a Wednesday...perhaps it was Thursday night. I'll think about it and let you know when I start journal entry two, but here we are... two very tired kids, riding in this massive airplane, filling out immigration papers for our landing in Japan, being told"we're behind schedule... and we have to de-plane, go through immigration, and go right back to the same airplane?!" Something's fishy....

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Comments

[Dave Fosdal]

UNITED AIRLINES
Every time I have gone thru the Tokyo airport on the way back from Bangkok we have had to go thru the checkpoints and all that again-and no more free booze on the flight--at least intl flights do not charge for bags