Winter Break Part 1: Getting to Taiwan

Hi again, everyone! Sorry for the long delay due to winter break travels. Now that it's finally over, I can fill you in on what happened starting from the first part of the trip: making my way to Taiwan.

After the fall semester ended, I packed my things and headed to Tokyo to meet up with my sister and my girlfriend. I took the overnight bus and arrived in Tokyo early in the morning. The plan was to meet up with my girlfriend and spend the rest of the day exploring Tokyo together before my sister arrived that night. Unfortunately, she had forgotten her passport at home, and had to take another round trip on the bus to go fetch it. This meant that I was stuck in Tokyo all by myself.

Fortunately, a couple of the other Aomori ALTs had taken the same overnight bus as mine on their way to Narita Airport, so I hung out with them in Ueno until they had to catch their flight. They even gave me a beer; for what reason I will never know. Eventually, Kristin made it to Tokyo, and we had a nice - even if overpriced - meal at Omoide Yokochou in Shinjuku with our friend Yumi.

After dinner, we went to the Shinjuku bus terminal to wait for my sister's arrival. Before she left Los Angeles, we had agreed to meet there, but she wasn't anywhere in sight when we arrived. Shinjuku station is very confusing, and we had no idea when she would be arriving anyways, so we decided the best option was to wait in the hotel for her to call us on a payphone. Then we could go to wherever she ended up and guide her to the hotel.

A few hours later, just past midnight, we started to worry that something had gone terribly wrong. Just then, I got an email on my phone. It was my sister, saying, "I'm in the hotel lobby. Where are you?" Thankfully, she had gotten directions from the bus terminal attendants after waiting there for a few hours (and having forgotten to print out the phone number I provided her). It's a good thing I provided a several-page-long detailed itinerary of the whole trip for her, or she'd most definitely had been a goner.

The next morning, all three of us stepped onto the train to Narita Airport to catch our flight to Taiwan. First there was some confusion with the terminals. Our flight information said to go to "Terminal I", so we headed to Terminal 1. We soon found out that Terminal 1 is only for domestic flights. It turns out the capital "I" (which was represented as a single vertical line in Ariel font, for heaven's sake) is in fact not a roman numeral 1, but actually stands for "International". We then headed over to the inconsistently named "International Terminal", and before we passed the train gates, I noticed I didn't have my backpack with me! I had left it on the train when we went to the wrong terminal, and it had my passport, cameras, and Taiwanese money in it!

I hurriedly asked the train information booth to try to find it. Thankfully, the people they called found it, but by that time, I only had about an hour left to check into my flight. My backpack was 40 minutes down the train line, so I asked if someone could bring it on the next train to the airport. They said they couldn't do that for liability reasons, and that I'd have to go fetch it myself. I had 60 minutes to catch a flight, and it would take 80 minutes to get the docs I needed to be on the flight. It was looking grim. With little other choice, I told my sister and girlfriend to go ahead without me as I took the next train to my backpack.

By the time I retrieved my lost goods, it was obvious I wouldn't make my flight. Over the phone, I talked to a lady at the counter, and she allowed me onto the same flight for the next day. I told my girlfriend to go to Taiwan with my sister first, and I got to the airport in time to see their flight take off. Despair...

I ended up spending the night in the airport terminal. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, since there was free wifi, a charging station for my phone, flat comfy benches to sleep on, lots of other sleeping people, and security guards everywhere watching over us. Here's what it looked like:

Rows of sleeping people. Haneda Airport, International Terminal, Arrivals floor.

The next morning: a sign of hope!

After 24 hours in the airport, I was finally on my flight to Taiwan!

Mt. Fuji from the plane. I would have found this gorgeous if not for...

Right after takeoff, I realized I didn't have my glasses with me anymore. That morning, I had put on my contacts and left my glasses on the counter in the bathroom! This was not a good start to a vacation...

Next time, I actually get to Taiwan! And maybe I'll have some fun!