Well, all trips have a beginning, and this particular one is no exception. Sometimes I wonder how I end up (put myself?) in the center of a comedy of errors. I also marvel at how lucky I am that things often seem to fall into place and the puzzle pieces all come together in the right order. I swear, I’m a lucky girl.
Let’s just say that I do not always make the smartest decisions. The two days prior to departure had too little sleep and too much alcohol. Monday night’s wine tasting rolled into the wee hours of Tuesday morning. So, at 5:30 a.m. I sit down on the couch to talk to a friend for a few minutes before heading upstairs to bed where I had just set my alarm clock for a whopping one hour of sleep since I want to get to the airport one hour early. I’m sitting cross-legged on one end of the couch facing the other end. All of a sudden, I wake up. It’s grey outside but light. I’m still sitting upright and cross-legged in the same spot. I look at my watch only to discover that it’s 7:30. My flight is at 9. It takes twenty minutes to drive to the airport. I think, “Crap.” Then I think, “Don’t panic yet.” I run upstairs and shower, wash my hair, grab the five things I have listed on a piece of paper so that I don’t forget them and dump them into my carry-on bag. I yell to one of my friends that she needs to get up since we need to leave. She says something about not needing to take a shower so she can sleep a little longer. “No, my flight is in one hour.” Yee gads. As we drive to the airport we are laughing and commenting on what a good time we’d had the night before. Funny, when you only sleep for two hours, you can’t really be hung-over. You’re actually still intoxicated. I guess twenty hours on planes and other forms of transportation should cure that by the time I get there.
Once we arrive at the airport, I grabbed my suitcase and purse. If they couldn’t check my bag, I wouldn’t be able to go. Can you imagine two months in a foreign country with only the items you could fit into a roll-on carryon? Perhaps if I had packed differently....
Luckily, no one was at ticketing, and I ran up saying that I needed to check my bag to Osaka and was promptly told that I had missed the flight as I needed to be there two hours early for an international flight. Um, well, I’m really going to Detroit and then to Osaka. That didn’t matter. I was told that I could be rebooked for the next day. Okay, fine with me! (That’s probably not the typical response in this type of situation.) Well, somehow (magic?) my bag got checked, I grabbed my carry-ons out of the car, picked up my ticket on the way back in, and headed for security. I made it to Motown and onto the flight to Osaka. So, that was the Last Hurrah. Now it’s onto the boring, focused life that I will lead for the next two months. Having lived in Japan before, I am hoping to find a few interesting things to show those of you who haven’t. It will be infinitely more difficult to find odd things for those of you who have lived and traveled Japan, but there’s always the hope of finding something out there. It is Japan after all.
Let’s just say that I do not always make the smartest decisions. The two days prior to departure had too little sleep and too much alcohol. Monday night’s wine tasting rolled into the wee hours of Tuesday morning. So, at 5:30 a.m. I sit down on the couch to talk to a friend for a few minutes before heading upstairs to bed where I had just set my alarm clock for a whopping one hour of sleep since I want to get to the airport one hour early. I’m sitting cross-legged on one end of the couch facing the other end. All of a sudden, I wake up. It’s grey outside but light. I’m still sitting upright and cross-legged in the same spot. I look at my watch only to discover that it’s 7:30. My flight is at 9. It takes twenty minutes to drive to the airport. I think, “Crap.” Then I think, “Don’t panic yet.” I run upstairs and shower, wash my hair, grab the five things I have listed on a piece of paper so that I don’t forget them and dump them into my carry-on bag. I yell to one of my friends that she needs to get up since we need to leave. She says something about not needing to take a shower so she can sleep a little longer. “No, my flight is in one hour.” Yee gads. As we drive to the airport we are laughing and commenting on what a good time we’d had the night before. Funny, when you only sleep for two hours, you can’t really be hung-over. You’re actually still intoxicated. I guess twenty hours on planes and other forms of transportation should cure that by the time I get there.
Once we arrive at the airport, I grabbed my suitcase and purse. If they couldn’t check my bag, I wouldn’t be able to go. Can you imagine two months in a foreign country with only the items you could fit into a roll-on carryon? Perhaps if I had packed differently....
Luckily, no one was at ticketing, and I ran up saying that I needed to check my bag to Osaka and was promptly told that I had missed the flight as I needed to be there two hours early for an international flight. Um, well, I’m really going to Detroit and then to Osaka. That didn’t matter. I was told that I could be rebooked for the next day. Okay, fine with me! (That’s probably not the typical response in this type of situation.) Well, somehow (magic?) my bag got checked, I grabbed my carry-ons out of the car, picked up my ticket on the way back in, and headed for security. I made it to Motown and onto the flight to Osaka. So, that was the Last Hurrah. Now it’s onto the boring, focused life that I will lead for the next two months. Having lived in Japan before, I am hoping to find a few interesting things to show those of you who haven’t. It will be infinitely more difficult to find odd things for those of you who have lived and traveled Japan, but there’s always the hope of finding something out there. It is Japan after all.
posted by agiawb | 3:59 AM
1 Comments:
Hey, girl. Just read your posting. Looking forward to seeing what you post next time. Maybe some pictures of cute Asian boys? You should just go down the street and take random pictures of cute boys you see. Kawaii!!
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