Recent holiday to the British Isles, Part 1

On the morning of 22nd December, 2005, I went to work. But I only worked a half day. After lunch I went home, turned off my water, and then laboriously hauled my bag through the snow to the train station (falling into a snow drift along the way). I caught the train to Sakata City in Yamagata Ken in hopes of catching a plane from Shonai Airport down to Tokyo so I could catch my international flight the next morning.

Although the weather on the morning of the 22nd had been good, during the afternoon the weather started to get worse. My southward-bound train was delayed at some random station for fifteen minutes. But I got to Sakata station in plenty of time to catch the airport limousine bus, so I stopped worrying.

It started snowing while I was on my way to the airport. When I got there, the desk clerk told me my flight may be cancelled, they didn't know for sure yet. Bad weather in Haneda meant that the plane I was supposed to board had not yet left Tokyo. So I started worrying again.

But then the plane left Tokyo, so I was allowed to check in, and I stopped worrying again.

But as I was sitting at the gate, the weather got steadily worse and I started worrying again. My instinct was proved good when the plane went back to Tokyo and my flight was cancelled.

I got a refund for my ticket, and heard from the desk clerk that there was still one way out of Yamagata to Tokyo. I would have to take the bus back to Sakata Station, then catch a local train to Shinjo. The Yamagata Shinkansen line has recently been extended to Shinjo, so I would be able to get to Tokyo that way.

By this stage, there was a blizzard blowing outside, so the bus ride back to Sakata was more than a little scary. There were all these BUMP noises, as if we were hitting people, but it was probably just mounds of snow.

A couple of kind Tokyo Salarymen helped me buy a transfer ticket to Tokyo, and then I got on the train in what I thought was the nick of time. And then I waited. And waited. . . . The train finally left 25 minutes later. But there was supposed to be a 45 minute wait for the shinkansen in Shinjo, so I was not worrying too much.

But then half way to Shinjo, the snow got to be about 1 metre deep. We had to wait 15 minutes for a train going the other way to pass. So I started worrying again.

When I finally got to Shinjo, there was only a few minutes until the last shinkansen of the day left. It started moving before I had found my seat.

About a third of the way to Tokyo, the shinkansen stopped. The over-a-metre-of-snow had fallen off a platform in front of a local train, and we had to wait for that train to be dug out before we could move. Between there and Fukushima(?) the shinkansen moved slowly.

When I finally got to Tokyo Station, it was after midnight. All public transport to Narita (where my hotel booking was) had stopped. So I caught the 12.35am train to Chiba and then went looking for the taxi stand.

It seems that taxis from Chiba are popular at that time of the morning, because the taxi queue was over 200 metres long! I had to wait an hour for a taxi.

My taxi driver was a kindly old man. We chatted in Japanese on the way. We had some trouble getting into the airport grounds (because it was closed). The boot of the taxi had to be checked. But finally, at three in the morning (after a 14,000 yen taxi ride and a 14 hour journey) I got to my hotel. And had the pleasure of sleeping for 2 1/2 hours before getting up again and heading to the terminal to check in for my flight to Charles De Gaulle.

To add insult to injury, the weather on the morning of the 23rd was glorious, warm and sunny.


Next time on Randomness, by Togiren: Flights and Airports

(My apologies for all the Japan-centric terms. If there is anything that really does not make sense, leave a comment and I will post a better explanation)