We began our journey home around 1pm in Kyoto, Japan. We'd been there for 3 days, seeing the sights, eating the food, and fighting our way through the hoards of Japanese who also thought it would be a fabulous time to visit the city. I'll leave the rest of the Kyoto trip for another post, but suffice it to say it was beautiful and fun and very, VERY crowded.
Before our trip home we just had to stop for coffee at this place
Imagine our surprise when, beyond it's simple sign, you find yourself not in a granola-themed enclave full of overstuffed couches and smelling of patchouli but a rather elegant shop that could rival swanky European coffeehouses. Definitely NOT what we had envisioned when we saw the sign, ha ha
The day before, we went all-out and purchased shinkansen (bullet train) tickets, which happen to run between Kyoto and Nagoya about every 10 minutes. A little expensive, maybe, but so convenient and quick! And also quite crowded. In fact, ours was crowded enough that we stood the entire 45 minute journey in the door hatch with about 7 or 8 other people. Our train departed Kyoto station at 1:35pm, which is when I began counting the hours it took for us to get home.
Since our plan to eat kaiten-zushi (the conveyor belt sushi) failed miserably when we ran out of time in Kyoto, we ended up with a nutritious meal of coke zero and snickers bars on the train ^_^ But at least we were on time for the flight, right?
When we arrived at Japan Central International Airport (centrair for short, the Japanese just LOVE contracting every possible word they can) we were greeted with a sign that said "due to equipment arriving late the 5:10pm flight to San Francisco has been delayed until 8:15pm". Apparently, there was a weather delay.
...this meant that we would be arriving 3 hours later into San Francisco than previously planned, just late enough that we would miss our connecting flight to Denver. So, they offered to put us on one at 3:20pm that would arrive in Denver about 6:50. Seeing as there was nothing we could do about it, we agreed. Also, for the first time in my adult, full-fare-paying, life I was offered a free upgrade to business class. Unfortunately, only I was offered this upgrade (they only had one seat left), and being the kind soul that I am, I declined the offer in order to sit with Dave. So instead, they upgraded the two of us to economy plus.
Since we now had an extra two hours or so at the airport, we decided to wander around. It's actually got a fairly nice layout for wandering in the main terminal.
Takayama? Gion district in Kyoto?
Nope! Just the shopping area of the airport ^_-
They also have this fantastic sky walk where you can go outside and look out at the harbor, the runways, the gates, and watch the planes taking off.
The international terminal also has a business center where you can get online for free, which is where we spent a fair chunk of our time waiting for the plane to arrive.
The plane ride between Nagoya and San Francisco was rather uneventful. We ate curry, we watched movies, we went back in time...
I didn't manage to sleep at all as every time I was about to nod off we'd hit turbulence and I'd wake up. For the most part our journey was a clean, boring arc between Japan and the US. Until we were almost finally to California and we made this interesting squiggle.
The reason for our delay in Nagoya became quite apparent on our decent into San Francsico, which was marked by turbulance, the plane being struck by lightning, and the flight attendant announcing over the intercom (as part of his "put your tray tables and your seatbacks up speech) "and remember if we have to evacuate the plane be sure to leave all your carry-on items behind"
...always confidence inspiring, that one >.<
We cleared customs without any hassle, got some pizza (my first American meal in 5 months!) and found to our horror that the flight delays weren't over quite yet.
No free internet in the San Francisco airport. Didn't get offered any kind of upgrades. And our 3:30pm flight didn't end up leaving until after 5:30. Ah, America. At least the plane was only about a third full, which meant everybody got their own row.
In the end, it all worked out to:
Total travel time: 23.5 hours
Distance traveled: 6050 miles
Hours slept: 1.5
All to come here
Here's to being home for a week!
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