We're in Asia

We’re in Asia

I started this blog when we visited Hawaii last fall and my initial entry was sarcastically entitled “Getting there is half the fun”. Who was it who said, “It’s deja vu all over again.”? (I know it wasn’t Yogi Berra.) This trip got off on the same left foot.
Again, the initial flight from Toronto to Los Angeles was fine but things started to go wrong as soon as we landed in LA. We wanted to break up our travel so we had booked an overnight stay at the Travel Lodge LAX South. We chose that hotel because it was close to the airport (only a five minute ride) and they provided a shuttle service (or so they said). Of course, since they didn’t answer their phone, we never did get the shuttle pick-up. Tack another $24 onto the room rate for a cab ride to the hotel. They did get us back to the airport the next morning but very early since their shuttle runs only every 1 ½ hours.
Checking through security at LAX brought another snag. Somewhere between Toronto’s security check and LA’s, my carry-on had picked up suspicious traces. So, once again, it was a full body pat-down and a thorough inspection of everything in my carry-on bag. Same no results. As I said to Doreen, it must be the peppermint knobs–all that sugar.
We’re flying American to Tokyo (not Air Canada) so we don’t anticipate any problems. Things go smoothly with the boarding but then the pilot announces that we’re just waiting for the maintenance crew to sign off on a few things so there will be a short delay. Twenty minutes later we’re good to go–for about 100 metres. Then it’s back to the gate. Seems the maintenance crew had been working on a fuel pump and the cockpit gauges were showing it wasn’t working. The captain was understandably reluctant to begin a trans-Pacific flight without being sure he could get gas to the jet engines.
We finally departed LA at 2 p.m. on Friday some two hours behind schedule so our eleven-hour flight suddenly became a thirteen-hour ordeal. Landing at Narita airport shortly after 5 o’clock on Saturday afternoon, we’re still a long ways from Tokyo. But all it takes is a train ride from Narita to Nippori Station, a subway ride from Nippori to Hamamatsucho Station and a taxi from there to the Shiba Park Hotel. Piece of cake even with the luggage and the Japanese signs–lots of helpful natives.
The hotel looks gorgeous but we’re too tired to really appreciate it yet. We finally climb into bed around 5 a.m. LA time. It’s been a long day but we’re here. Now, on to Mount Fuji.