G.R.I.T.

A Grand Day Out

Yay! Off to Japan! Pack uｐ all the stuff and toss it in the car. Then off to the airport and through security. Except that we had some trouble there...　I have many airsoft guns, I plan on playing airsift here in Japan, I brought my airsoft guns with me, the TSA guys had never heard of airsoft... Yeah, so we waited for them to figure out what to do with these "guns" that weren't marked. They discussed it with at least 10 people and had me explain what they were at least that many times untill finally a guy showed up who knew what I was talking about and I was cleared to go in under 30 seconds. And thus began our journey. The flight to Chicago and connection to Tokyo were uneventful. However, once we got to Tokyo we had to wait for the plane to be checked over with a heat scanning camera so that they could be sure we didn't have the dreaded swine flu (or pig plague as my new friend Daniel likes to call it.) Then through customs. But another problem. They weren't happy with Natalie's paperwork claiming that she would be teaching english. They wanted her to produce a visa for that even though she was entering as a tourist and essentially volunteering as a temporary assistants helper... yeah. So that held us up for a while and by the time we made it to Haneda (the other Tokyo airport that isn't near Tokyo) we had missed our flight by almost a half an hour. By this time we were both exausted and sick of the stress and problems of our trip. Fortunately, there were a few people at the airport who spoke a little English. Before long thay had us on a several hour process of contacting the States and getting our flight changed to the next day. And all it took was time and money... and more money. (Like 3 hours and a total of $800 kind of time and money.) In the end we were stuck for the night but able to get on the first flight the next morning. With jetlag acting up we were able to get our tickets and turn in our baggage hours before we needed to and had plenty of time to wander around trying to find and open Starbucks (which we never did.) So we sat and waited for our flight which ended up being delayed about 20 minutes. The flight went well and finally, finally, finally, we made it off and to Norman's minivan headed to our apartments. So the moral of the story is, when you travel take plenty of cash, have access to plenty of cash in other countries, plan for the worst, and hope for dear life that you somehow get the best... but good luck on that.
Andrew Murray
Short termer/GRITer

posted by Norman @ 4:52 PM