Last week in summary…

すみません！五十分の便です！

I’m going to fast forward to my last day in Japan. It’s out of order, but nonetheless a thrilling experience.

On Sunday afternoon, 5:15 PM, I found myself trying to accomplish the impossible. I just got off the train and entered Narita airport, where the 5:50 plane to Singapore had essentially boarded everyone else – except for stragglers like Alicia and me. Narita is impossibly difficult to navigate because everyone is queued up everywhere. So with little more than 30 minutes before the flight, I had to 1) check-in, 2) go through security, 3) traverse the immigration lines (which were swamped), and 4) run for dear life.

Now, 30 minutes normally wouldn’t be too bad if a few shortcuts were taken. The boarding gates close 15 minutes prior to departure, which would mean a 15-minute leeway. Besides, it’s possible to convince people in front of you that you’re desperate to catch your flight. So, steps 2 and 3 would’ve been much easier to get by, if it wasn’t for being held up at step 1. Here’s where the interesting events started. I really wish I had a video camera with me since it would’ve made such a fantastic short film/Youtube video.

The trouble started when at the United Airlines counter the staff refused to let us board because we were late (when in fact there was ample time left until departure) and it would’ve been a hassle to get our luggage aboard. So, the attendant told us to wait until the next day. So we waited around wasting a good 10 minutes until UA finally decided to check us in. We were already cutting it so close that 10 minutes could’ve made a huge difference between getting on board or not. But fortunately we got checked it.

The next step involved running a whole lot… through security, immigration, terminals, more terminals, yet more terminals, etc. No one had time to really verify our information nor charge us for overweight luggage… basically, we were told just to run. Oh, there were UA representatives running with us. One of them guided us to the destination. Along the way, she screamed a lot of commands like “Passport!” and “Ticket!” What we did while running with lots of loose papers in our hands was hand her our documents and she reviewed our papers while running. And when a certain destination was reached, another runner came to relay. Since I was carrying money, passport, and my computer in one hand while my bags were in the other, I’m surprised that nothing was lost in the process. I’m also incredibly impressed that under that much pressure I was still able to communicate using my gaijin Japanese skills.

By the time we arrived at our gate (we had probably already delayed the flight by quite a bit), the staff decided to slow down the process even further by giving me a security check of everything in my backpack and duffel bag. My backpack was a complete mess at this point, and I had to dig through a lot of papers. My duffel bag was a complete wreck – shoes, clothes, etc. everywhere.

At least in the end everything went alright. I’m not sure how I many to accomplish something like this. I also for sure ticked off a lot of people at the airport – the UA staff, the immigration officers, and all those people in lines whom I cut.

So that’s my half hour at Narita in a nutshell. I’ll write about what I actually did in Japan in my next post.