The hustle back

Sunday, 28 Oct 2007 | Journal

The original plan was to stick around Kyoto for two days. I left Tokyo with some shopping yet to be done and figured I would get to that on Saturday. When I asked Taka about the trip back to the airport, he painted a picture of a day long travel after an early rise. We all know I don’t like early rises and so it was that I decided to join Natalie on her trip back.

After I got to Tokyo and said goodbye to Natalie, I was left to find a hotel. I stored one of my bags in a locker at the train station so I wouldn’t have to carry it with me and back to the train station. Then I called the hotel I had been staying at, but they only had more expensive rooms available. I tried to find a capsule hotel and briefly considered booking a love hotel after all, but ended up paying for the more expensive room.

An evening with rain, I did go out for a quick bite and had a drink in a bar, but went to sleep fairly early. I woke up the next morning, had a shower and set out for my errands. A Tokyo city mug from Starbucks, I wanted to get a bag for my computer to take to the office, etc. Walked out of the hotel (they couldn’t be bothered to let me know checkout was at 11am so I had to pay extra) and walked into a very rainy day. Enough of this already, I know I said I was so happy to find fresh air again but I never said I missed rainy days!

Soaking wet from a 200 meter walk to the Aayome-Itchome subway station, I decided to have breakfast before heading downtown. I had a bagel with cream cheese and blueberry, a blueberry juice and blueberry pastry and a coffee. The reason I mention this is because it demonstrates how seasonal things find their way into a lot of things. Fall for example is the season of chestnuts and one can even get chestnut Kitkat and chestnut flavored drinks. This store went the blueberry route and I quite enjoyed. But I digress.

Subway to Shibuya and I was able to find my way into several department stores without getting wet, using the subway station as underground tunnels. I spent too much time browsing (and ended up not buying anything, to make matters worse) and then had quite the hustle to get on the plane. I had to rush from Shibuya to Tokyo station (a half hour trainride) and then take the airport express for an hour. In between, I had to pick up a bag and somehow call the airline to see if I could check in because I would arrive at the airport the same minute the checkin counter would close.

No telephone checkin possible in Japan. Or for United. Or whatever. Thats what the gentlemen told me in the few minutes I had at the Tokyo trainstation to use a public phone. He said he would notify staff on the ground but I was requested to hustle. And so there I was, with two heavy bags running through the airport. I made the checkin, bought myself an upgrade to Economy Plus (same narrow seats, more legspace, 7000 yen (43 euro) and thus well worth it for a 6.5 hour flight) and was instructed to run to the gate in order not to miss the flight. So what does this stubborn guy do? Run in the opposite direction because he HAS to have a Tokyo city mug and Starbucks is in the other direction. Then run back (I really was running!) and in the right direction for the gate. As soon as I spotted the gate and a few people still in line I turned around and went back to the snack shop I had seen flashing by, because I wanted to buy one of those AWESOME bento boxes Natalie and I had on the shinkansen back from Kyoto. Frantically searching around the shop I could only find candy, snacks, cookies and other stuff but NOT the bento box I wanted. And so run back to the gate, board the plane (with time to spare, I was not the last one on board!) and settle in for the flight.

When I get home around midnight tonight, I’ve got one more day to relax and then holiday time is over and it will be back to work for this boy.