From Japan

This is the first blog from my 2007 Australia training trip!! But I’m actually typing this in Japan! So far, I’ve killed 4 hours of my 6 hour layover…only 2 more hours until I board the Qantas flight to Brisbane. I’ve been awake for almost 24 hours…it will be exactly 24 hours when I sit in seat 48H and we take off…and that’s EXACTLY when I will be falling asleep for the entire flight south.
This morning, checking in was uneventful in COS (surprisingly, because it was at 5:00am and that is when things tend to go horribly wrong)…unfortunately, the lady at the United desk didn’t get my hints that I would LOVE to be bumped up into Business classL. Oh well, I slept most of the way to San Francisco where Jaz and I killed 3 hours in the airport with a meal, some reading, and a coffee break. On the Tokyo-bound flight, I had a great Exit Row seat and spent most of the flight lying on the HUGE floor space to keep my legs up. I drank a lot of water, read most of the book I brought (Pursuit of Happyness…good read, I can’t wait to see the movie), watched some horrible movies, and stood at the back of the plane doing crossword puzzles.
Upon arrival in Tokyo, Jaz and I figured out that we had to get our luggage, exit through customs, take a bus to a different terminal, check in at the Qantas desk, and then go back through customs. As if things actually went that smooth!!!!!
We made it through customs (and I still have some fruit with me…SHHH, don’t tell) and found the bus to Terminal 2. We lugged our 8 pieces of luggage onto and off of the bus without anyone’s help. Unfortunately, this caused Jaz to drop her PASSPORT somewhere along the unloading process…Fortunately, she realized it about 90 seconds later and immediately started the searching process. It only took the amount of time for the bus driver to make the Terminal circle again because as soon as he pulled up, Jaz was reunited with her passport!
Now, we only had 5 hours of layover time to kill. We started with another coffee break for 30 minutes. Then we made our way over to the Qantas counter to check in…where we met some Australian surfer-dudesJ who were in the process of moving items between their bags. I realized that I was in for the same ‘MAXIMUM WEIGHT of 20 kilos’ issue because the combined weight of my luggage is 1 ton (seriously, I have some over-packing issues that I need to get help for)!!!
At the check-in counter, Jaz and I were actually asked for 120,000 yen at one point for our excess 26 kilos of baggage (and we figured that came out to somewhere around $1,200!!!!!) I was about to just start throwing things in the garbage when the Qantas lady asked us if we had come straight from the USA. In about 2 seconds flat, I had my United ticket out as proof that I was in Colorado earlier this morning…the end result was NO CHARGE for any of the excess weight! I still can’t believe that we got out of that BIG problem without any damage…it just goes to show that when traveling internationally, be prepared to go through a gauntlet of emotions!
This blog has managed to eat up another 20ish minutes…it’s now 7:43pm in Tokyo, our Qantas flight is scheduled to depart at 9:30pm. But, I feel the need to point out that there is NO PLANE AT THE GATE! I’ve traveled enough to know that NO airline can turn around an international flight in less than 2 hours…so I’m already predicting a delay…good thing I’m in NO immediate rush…except to get a shower and some exercise upon arrival in Noosa.
Jasmine is stretched out on the chairs snoring…the night-time-airport-cleaning-crew is out in full force trying to vacuum everywhere (even under my current seat on the floor)…and slowly, but surely, people are trickling into this boarding area (which is not surprising because I was told the flight is almost full).
If you can’t tell by now, I have a case of the sleep-deprived-typing-babble mixed with a little got-to-kill-ths-layover-time-syndrome. The combination of those two disorders results in a really long blog that I hope at least entertains ONE person (and I can count on my 2 parents reading the whole thingJ).
Next time you hear from me, I’ll actually be IN Australia and, hopefully, making more sense! Later Gators!