wake.eat.sleep

So with a twinge of melancholy, I started making preparations to leave Tokyo on Thursday.

The JR-East Company happens to run a nifty little express train service from the Tokyo area, straight to the Narita Airport Terminals:

Read more here: http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/nex/index.html

Attempting to be somewhat slick about the whole process, I decided to reserve my seats the day before, for a hassle free process:

(Some of you may remember that when I first used the express train from the airport, I didn't sit at my designated "reserved" seat.)

Anyway, I thought that I was good to go on Friday morning. I even kept to my regular routine of watching my favorite morning news crew:

(Um, those mascots didn't actually report any news. They're used to report horoscope-type stuff. A lot of the morning news shows have these.)

The weather folk always dress appropriately to give you a hint to what the weather would be like:

 
Even holding an umbrella to emphasize the point:

And finally a sakura blooming report:

(Observant viewers will note that she is at Ueno Park!)

What was also mentioned in the news, but I didn't think was relevant at the time was the effect of the winds that morning, and how trains were affected. I somewhat picked up on the strength of the wind, and the fact that some train service was affected. But my poor vocabulary didn't pick up on the severity.

To make a long story short, winds of up to 52 mph affected some of the major train lines:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100403a9.html

Of course, I didn't find this out until I got to the train station.

As I'll cover in a post about trains in Japan, the station notices about trains are pretty reliable. So when I got to the station, and didn't see the times matching up. It was a bit of concern. That, and the lack of people at the particular track for the train.

...turns out that all of the express train services to the airport were canceled. I overheard a helpful Chinese fellow explain the situation to some American tourists. (After he got the news from one of the station employees in Japanese, which I also tried to overhear but with limited comprehension.)

With full luggage in tow (I only had a large suitcase, 2 medium sized duffel bags, and my laptop messenger bag to lug around...no problem!), it was off to the ticket office to get things squared away. I came away with a refund, a new ticket, and somewhat broken directions to get to the airport via local train services.

The directions that I got sounded like: take a train and transfer at Unabashi. Take the Keisei Line to the airport. I got her to verify which track to take. The ticket says Tokyo Station to Funabashi Station, which wasn't quite clear to me until I got a peek at the route map:

Once on the train, my large luggage gave away the fact that perhaps I was on my way to the airport. So a fellow from Hong Kong decided that I looked like I knew where I was going, and if he could follow me to the airport. I said no problem, but I'm sure he felt a little bit of concern when we had the following exchange:

Him: Have you taken this way before?
Wes: This is my first time to Tokyo.
Him: ...

We made it to Funabashi, and then had to wait for the local train, which is much slower, and less comfy than the original express bullet trains:

We made it eventually, but I'm not sure if he made it on time for his flight, since he was cutting it extremely close. I had more than enough time to check in and even exchange my money back to dollars. (A mistake which I'll cover in a different post.)

Once I boarded, I was ready for an uneventful, quiet ride home. Perhaps some time spent with one of the books I brought (but never opened), or getting to know a new game that I bought for my PSP. I must have tempted the fates with those optimistic thoughts.

The international flight had seating arrangements like this:
AB CDEFG HI

And last flight, I was in Seat G along with a family of 4, with the young kid who would not stop crying for most of the flight. So for this flight, I thought I'd improve my odds by switching to seat H. Instead, I swapped a family for an interesting fellow named Gene.

Gene has been living a pretty interesting life. In active retirement, after being a Navy Seal, then a Navy Seal trainer of sorts. He left and started a successful boating business for a number of years, before selling off that company. He also sailed around the world twice, and was coming back home to North Carolina for the first time in about 10 years to visit his family. He was flying from South Korea, where he had been working as an educational adviser to the South Korean government. There were issues with educational standards, poor vetting of text books, and even trying to find ways to improve the quality of education.

Um, what does this have to do with you, you might be wondering? I was wondering that myself. But I got the feeling that it may have been a while since he's had a chance to speak with a fellow American, so all of these stories (and this was only 10-20% of the stories he told me) must have been saved up and dying to spew out of him. In fact, even with head phones on eventually, he still found ways to get my attention and talk to me. Perfect timing if you're trying to fall asleep. Haha!

As one final memento of the trip, a person on our side of the cabin, a row ahead, hit the washroom multiple times to the point where he got on-board medical assistance, and was eventually moved to the rear of the cabin. Once we landed, everyone was held from disembarking. First, because they needed the paramedic to get back to the passenger right away. Lastly, because a SECOND passenger had a medical emergency and they wanted to make sure that there wasn't any contagious elements involved. Nice.

It's good to be home in familiar settings, and speaking English full time again. I'll be putting up more posts (in order this time) over the next couple of days as I unpack memories.

Thanks for reading so far, if you've been keeping up.