And so here starts the tale of the trip that almost didn’t happen.
I had some friends over at my place the night before I was scheduled to leave, and as I was in the final stages of packing, I then realized that I had no idea of the current location of my passport. In addition to being important for identification purposess, this passport was particularly important to me because it has a valid Chinese Visa, allowing my entry into the country so that I may meet up with my friend Benny, who went to my school a few years ago as an exchange student. My friends and I tore up my room, looking for the passport. After hours of seaching, calling CPS to let me back in my office, I finally found my passport. It had somehow wound up inside a book (Dave Barry’s I’m not Taking This Sitting down for the curious among us), which had formerly been part of a stack of things that I had cleaned up just that day before my friends arrived.
Now, the circle completes as I pay him a visit while on vacation. I write this just after my arrival at the Narita airport in Toyko. There is wifi here but a few things prevent me from taking advantage of this:
1. It is not free
2. The cheapest plan is 500 yen for the day (roughly 5 US $) which is a bit much for a simple bit of blog posting and email checking for the 1.5 hr that I would be stuck in the airport lobby
3. I to not have any Japanese Yen on me right no
So all of the above worked together to influnce my decision to abstain from the tubes for the time being.
The flight from PDX to NRA was nice, and much shorter than some of my previous flights (10 hrs vs 17). IN flight options were nicer as well. The plane was relatively empty so I actually had an entire center section of an aisle to myself, which would have been even better if I only got seriously tired right about when the plane landed (roughly 11:30 Portland Time) . I might be able to catch some more sleep on my Leg from Tokyo to Shanghai, which is not that long (roughly equivalent to a PDX/LAX run).
Narita has some great traveller lounges. I’m writing ion one right now and there is a good deal of art, comfortable table-couchish things, and AC power (There was also a McDonald’s; a good ol reminder of home). Hopefully I will be able to meet up with Benny just fine in Shanghai.