Let's talk about the remainder of the trip.
I was pretty nervous about missing the flight the next morning, so I pretty much didn't sleep. I laid in bed with my eyes open all night and didn't move much, but I was at the most semi conscious. Which was good, because I was attempting to leave the country and I should try to be awake for that.
In the morning I took a taxi to the airport, and thank god I printed out my itinerary because there is no United terminal in Japan, apparently. I was flying through ANA and the cab driver took me directly there.
After waiting in no less than three separate lines to find out I was doing it wrong, an English speaking attendant came to help me out and show me which line I needed to go to. Actually, the entirety of everything that needed to be done was done in English. I was apparently overly anxious for no good reason.
Wait, no, I lied.
Every single one of my flights had an issue.
The first flight was delayed an hour. Then, on top of that, they switched the gate without notice and I was anxious about that. Then there was some pretty bad turbulence on the flight.
The second flight (from Narita to Chicago) was also delayed (only by a few minutes) but then I myself was detained in order to get randomly screened. Yes. The white guy in Japan was "randomly" screened. Wink. The other person getting out of the random screening area was also a foreigner. Just saying.
The flight itself was relatively pleasant for how long it was, and I was sitting next to a woman and her son from Taiwan that lived in Canada, so they were fun conversationalists as well, which was good. Although the kid was really excited that I knew about video games and cartoons. I never thought being a nerd would have a downside (other than being picked last in gym class and having bad luck with women). Although they did show Dragonball Evolution, which is an abomination of a movie if I ever saw one. Worth the money back right there.
The plane had continental breakfast in the form of an omelette, sausage, and hash browns. It was my first taste of AMERICA in a while and it was glorious. Gotta love microwaved breakfast meals.
The flight itself had a lot of turbulence and the seatbelt light was on the entire time. We were allowed to get up and use the bathroom, but were encouraged to remain seated with our seatbelts buckled pretty much the entirety of the rest of the time. Sort of... restrictive, in that sense. And unpleasant.
After landing I had a 5 hour layover in Chicago before heading back home. I was pretty much waived through customs for some reason, which was nice. I wandered around looking for some food, but all the food shops were past security for some reason so I just nabbed some junk food from a newsstand. Then I found the info desk because I heard there were DINOSAURS afoot! Well not really afoot, but there apparently is a brachiosaurus skeleton in the terminal, or at least a recreation. That was also past security.
So I went past security, again needing to be individually checked (I AM APPARENTLY VERY SUSPICIOUS) and then immediately found the skeleton. I was probably looking like a gigantic manchild, but I took a bunch of photos of it with a grin on my face. I am allowed to like dinosaurs. I am a grown man, and a grown man should know what he likes. And dinosaurs are one of those things.
Also pretzels, cause I went and got one of those.
I had plenty of time to kill and there wasn't really a general waiting room, so I sort of wandered. My flight wasn't even listed on the terminal yet being so far ahead of when I arrived, so I found out about a wheel of fortune that you could spin to possibly upgrade your ticket in the next terminal over. I headed there and spun it to win a bottle of water, because I have no actual luck. Then I played around on the moving walkways for a bit and went back to the main terminal to get some actual dinner.
Afterwards I checked the departure schedules again to find out that I was departing from the terminal that I had just left. Literally two gates away from the wheel of fortune. Ah ha... oy. Headed back there and basically waited around until my plane would leave.
Except it had problems refueling. So we were delayed half an hour before take off. And as a result had to wait another half hour in the queue before we could actually take off. And then we hit such bad turbulence that in flight service was cancelled. AND THEN because there was a storm going on we had to wait an extra twenty minutes after landing before they unloaded our baggage.
But I managed to land safe and alive, and in prime condition to forget blogging for a while. My friends met me at the airport and I was discombobulated from not sleeping for three days. I was having difficulty speaking fully in English or completely coherently and kept dipping in and out of consciousness.
But I'm glad to be home.
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