Tag: Flying

Good morning from Tokyo. Local time is now 6:15 am, but back home it is 1:15 pm. We arrived in Tokyo around 11:00 at night, and made our way through customs to the international flights. For some reason, international flights are unloaded outside customs. Our flight was long, and it was difficult to sleep on it. Upon debarking, I went to use the local restroom before deciding that I was too tired to try to figure out the pit-toilets that they have in the airport.

After figuring out where our departure gate was, we decided to rent a room at the international hotel for 6 hours. The price was $130, but having a good five-hour sleep and a shower made it worth it. The rooms were very nice–one of the nicest hotels I’ve stayed in–with all the latest devices and gadgets. Plus, we got to hang out in the lounge for a while afterwards while we ate breakfast. Thus, I sit here typing and eating my ramen bowl, which I had to get help to properly fix. I want to tip the front-desk person who helped me out so much, but a quick internet search showed that for the most part tips are not accepted, and can even be considered an insult.

With our rest, we should be feeling awake enough to explore when we arrive in Hanoi. It looks like someone from our tour will be there to pick us up.

The closest we got to Tokyo was looking at it through the airport hotel windows.

We got a bit of a bad start this morning. Due to weather in San Francisco, our flight has been delayed three hours. We were actually in the process of boarding when we heard the news. Unfortunately, we only had a two hour window to catch our connection to Seoul. It is possible that it might also be delayed long enough for us to catch it, but I’m not too hopeful. If we don’t make it, we will have to catch the flight the next day, which sounded like it was full. We may be getting a very late start to our vacation.

Update (9:05 am): We just found out that San Francisco International is closed, and no flights are going in or out. We will definitely not make our connection in Seoul, but I am trying to remain hopeful that we will make it to San Francisco before our connection leaves.

Update (4:38 pm): We made it to San Francisco, but missed our flight to Seoul. The next three and a half hours were spent waiting in lines and making phone calls, trying to reschedule our flight. Asiana said it wasn’t their problem because our flight from Seattle to San Francisco was on United. United said it was not their problem because the flight was booked through Asiana. It was finally Travelocity, who we purchased the tickets through, who came to the rescue. We have a flight from San Francisco to Tokyo leaving at 6:00. We then have a 12 hour layover, before catching our flight to Vietnam. We will miss a day in Hanoi, but there is now a plan. On the plus side, I’ve never been to Tokyo. I wonder if we will be brave enough to leave the airport and do a bit of exploring between flights, or if we will just be too tired.

Final Note: My apologies to those who don’t think this reads like a travel magazine. I am writing everything down in my journaling software, and then posting it. In other words, I am writing this for me, to help me remember the trip. That means that it may be a bit ruminating and long-winded. If you find this to be the case, rest assured that the pictures will come, and you will be able to quickly flip through them. I just figured that images of grumpy people waiting for hours in a line were not what I or anyone else would want to look at.