Made It!!

Ok everyone, I'm sure you've wanted to hear from me. I did a little writing along the way, and so now I present to you - Trip: a tale of my travels.

I love air travel. However...

Heh... interesting start to the morning. Made it to the airport on time, and had an emotional goodbye to my family. I met a nurse on her way to New Orleans as my first seat partner. We took off about 10 minutes later than expected, because of weather conditions up near Chicago. While in the air, we circled O'Hare Int'l for about 30 minutes, before we got clearance to land. I'm sure you can see where this is going...

Yep. Missed my connection to San Francisco. Made it into O'Hare at around 7:57, at gate B22. That left me 3 minutes to get to gate C22 about a quarter-mile away. Needless to say... Nope.

Oh well, I was worried that I wouldn't get any pictures from O'Hare anyway.

My flight path has now changed a bit, and hopefully I can get ahold of someone in the JASIN program to let them know about the issue. Half-panicked, I ran around the B concourse at O'Hare, trying to get a rebooked flight. Thanks to a magically wonderful group of people from both United Airlines and Air Nippon for All (ANA), I was able to get this flight path instead: From O'Hare, I have a _direct_ flight to Tokyo Narita. I have a 6 hour layover, but I also have to make it to Tokyo Haneda, for a flight to Fukuoka. I'll arrive about an hour later than what I thought, and about 3000 yen less rich due to a bus ride between the two airports (which, from what I was told, takes about two hours). We'll see how things progress.

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Currently sitting on my rescheduled flight from O'Hare to Narita. It's been a bit boring on here, and I've got just about 5 hours left. It's been a quiet trip; most of the time, I'll talk to the people around me, and see what their story is, and then just make conversation to pass the time. However, when there is no one around you that speaks any English... well, that makes it a bit harder now, doesn't it?

For some reason, I'm having an issue with my camera and Sabayon 3.3. I'll check to see if it's Sabayon specifically when I stop at Tokyo Haneda (after the bus ride between airports...). That way, I'll be able to at least get some pictures up onto the blog as well; I've taken a few, but haven't been able to upload them yet. I wish my card reader on the laptop would work - that would make this a lot simpler.

I watched a Japanese movie in-flight. It was called Nada Sou Sou (Tears For Each of Us). Such an emotional storyline! If you can find a copy off of amazon.com that's subbed, get it. It's about sticking together with your family, no matter what kind of family it may be: brother and sister, father and daughter, or guardian to child. Also, I've kept myself entertained with the provided games and music that comes in the seat panel in front of me. Unfortunately, cheap games and a limited selection of music don't last too long.

So, I've taken out my laptop, hoping to catch some eyes with Sabayon. I'll pitch my F/OSS sound byte when I can :)

Well, I've looked at a map, and it's officially tomorrow now - I've crossed the International Date Line. Tokyo Narita is about 4.5 hours away, and looking ever closer. I can't wait to finally land. I'll keep everyone informed of the situation as it continues.

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Well, I made it to Tokyo Narita at around 2:15 PM Thursday afternoon. Quite a trip that was. The entry to Tokyo, although a bit rough on a 777, was absolutely gorgeous. I think the guys next to me were bemused at my repetetive "sugoi...". However, although I made it to Narita, my luggage unfortunately didn't. As far as I can tell, it is being routed through to Nagoya to Fukuoka, as it should, albeit a plane or two late. Oh well, they have the info for where I'm going to be staying, and they have Mark Tiedemann's number - they'll be able to let me know if anything comes up.

Currently, I'm sitting on a bus headed towards Tokyo Haneda airport. Picture Tokyo like Chicago. You have the huge airport for all of the international flights (Narita == O'Hare), and then you have the smaller city airport that maintains most of the domestic flights (Haneda == Midway). It's about a two-hour bus ride, and amazingly, my airline paid for the transportation! I was shocked. Further proof that I will be taking United for all of my flights from now on. :)

Well, I better get off so I can get a couple snapshots of downtown Tokyo. How many times do you get to do that, anyway?

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Well, I've made it to Haneda. The bus ride was around an hour and a half - a bit better than the two hours that everyone was predicting. I went to check in (about 2 hours early... I'm finally somewhere at a time when I can feel comfortable) and they wanted to move me to an earlier flight. Unfortunately, I had already called Mark Tiedemann and told him about my time difference, and I didn't want to have to bother him again, so I left it be. Haneda is very, VERY sleek. Both airports are well designed, and look and feel both advanced, hi-tech, and functional. I was surprised by Narita, but Haneda just blew me away. I was not expecting an airport to have a 4-floor shopping district built into it. :)

There are a whole bunch of shops, from clothing to food, to computer accessories, to food, to bathroom items, to food... seeing a pattern here? It's worse than Chicago and a Starbucks on every block! Even now, I'm sitting next to an ANA Festa stand, which sells items from the ANA plane line, as well as a lot of different types of traditional Japanese airport food. I'd go and get something, but ordering food is harrowing. I know only a little bit of Japanese (enough to get me by - the most common word I've used so far: "Sumimasen."), so going through tasks like ordering food and drink are a bit shocking still. I guess the best way is to get comfortable by doing it and seeing how it goes... but I'm chicken. :)

Hopefully, there's a secure Wi-Fi spot in Fukuoka (or at the hotel) that I can hit to post all of this. There's one here at Haneda, but I'm not too sure if I can trust it, especially since the SSID is "BIGBIRD." So I'll wait. I've got plenty to post, and Thursday will certainly show more. Even with all of the changes, and exploring of Tokyo that wasn't really scheduled (hehe...), it's still been a blast. Like I said earlier... I love airport travel.

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So there you go. So far, the only thing that I've noticed that will cause me a problem, is that I can't charge my laptop. I need to find a 3-prong to 2-prong adapter, or I'm sunk. Oh well, it'l 11:15 here. Good night.