I'm sitting here in my hotel room a few miles from O'hare airport thinking of my travel check list:
Fly 13 hours in the dark because the cabin electricity went dark...check
Hang out in a Japanese Airport for 13 hours while waiting for a flight home...check
Sprint through Hawaiian Airport in a sweatshirt because I'm already late for my connection to Seattle...check
Almost lose my place on the flight because I was running late after having been traveling for over 24
hours...check
Sitting next to a lady on a flight from Hawaii and having to hold her big Samoan baby as she proceeds to fill 4 formula bottles for the flight while taking off...check
Sitting next to Samoan baby wearing dirty diaper for 4 of 6 hours because he wasnt changed...check
Checking in to the wrong hotel youve traveled for nearly 40 hours and there are two of the same hotel within a mile from each other...check.
Being stuck at an airport while the power goes out and have my flight delayed two hours...check
Get on and then off and back on the plane only to be stuck on the tarmac for another 45 minutes because of bad weather in Chicago...check
Sitting at a cheap hotel outside of O'hare airport writing a blog post when I should be in route to Tokyo because the delays made me miss my flight...CHECK
*UPDATES
July 2011: Flew back after a wedding and my connection broke down and missed my flight back to Japan. Rescheduled a day later and had to take an extra day off work.
August 2011 Flight to Japan from Phillippines was cancelled, had to stay in a hotel and flew out at 5:30 AM the next day.
January 2012: Got sick 2 days before flying back. Felt sick and didnt eat the whole way back.
March 2012: Flew 5 out of seven days. Every single flight was delayed at least a half our. On the flight home our flight was scheduled to leave at 2AM but was delayed until 4AM. We then missed our connection in China. The only flight that was on time was one we wanted to be late. We had to go through the headache of customs in China and ended up getting back to Japan 21 hours after leaving for the airport in Malaysia.
August 2012: Generally, its been a difficult experience flying out of China as you can see above. This time we had an expected 8 hour layover in Shanghai. There is absolutely nothing to do in the international section of this airport. There are 4 restaurants that are identical and a coffee shop. China does not allow any social media so no Facebook or Twitter. Ahead of our flight, Matt (the guy i flew with) got a text from his dad saying our flight was delayed to the next morning. We had nothing in the airport so we thought that might be a mistake. How can a guy in the US know before the people in the airport right? Well we wait till 20 minutes before take off (11:30PM) . They tell us it has been switched to another gate. Finally after the flight was scheduled to leave. There was an announcement that there was a delay. We went to the counter to check on it. BOOM we had a delay until 7AM the next morning and they were going to put everyone in a hotel.
So at midnight we had to leave and go through customs. Customs in China is not pleasant. Generally, I always get the feeling that there is little to no communication between people at the airport. The airline knows whats going on but the customs people dont. So we have hundreds of people trying to get through customs and the agents have no clue whats going on. An hour later we get through and head to the bus. One would expect it to be the hotel right by the airport. NOPE, it was 45 minutes away. By 2:30 we got to the hotel and had a wake up call of 4:30. I woulda been happier just sleeping at the airport. The only saving grace of the day is that I woke up minutes before being able to watch the US Womens Soccer take gold against Japan.
DECEMBER 2012:
After traveling for nearly 30 hours, it was smooth sailing until we got on the runway in Chicago heading to Grand Rapids. After about 30 minutes, the captain comes on explaining that we were overweight and we either need to get rid of people or bags and he chose bags. He said that about 15 of them would not make it. Knowing my luck (see above), something was going to be missing. I get to Grand Rapids to find that one of my bags never made it on the carousel. I had two bags, one with presents and one with all of my clothes and jacket. The one with my clothes did not make it. I had to open a present just to be dressed for church Christmas eve. The bag finally was shipped to me at around midnight Christmas morning.
Fly 13 hours in the dark because the cabin electricity went dark...check
Hang out in a Japanese Airport for 13 hours while waiting for a flight home...check
Sprint through Hawaiian Airport in a sweatshirt because I'm already late for my connection to Seattle...check
Almost lose my place on the flight because I was running late after having been traveling for over 24
hours...check
Sitting next to a lady on a flight from Hawaii and having to hold her big Samoan baby as she proceeds to fill 4 formula bottles for the flight while taking off...check
Sitting next to Samoan baby wearing dirty diaper for 4 of 6 hours because he wasnt changed...check
Checking in to the wrong hotel youve traveled for nearly 40 hours and there are two of the same hotel within a mile from each other...check.
Being stuck at an airport while the power goes out and have my flight delayed two hours...check
Get on and then off and back on the plane only to be stuck on the tarmac for another 45 minutes because of bad weather in Chicago...check
Sitting at a cheap hotel outside of O'hare airport writing a blog post when I should be in route to Tokyo because the delays made me miss my flight...CHECK
*UPDATES
July 2011: Flew back after a wedding and my connection broke down and missed my flight back to Japan. Rescheduled a day later and had to take an extra day off work.
August 2011 Flight to Japan from Phillippines was cancelled, had to stay in a hotel and flew out at 5:30 AM the next day.
January 2012: Got sick 2 days before flying back. Felt sick and didnt eat the whole way back.
March 2012: Flew 5 out of seven days. Every single flight was delayed at least a half our. On the flight home our flight was scheduled to leave at 2AM but was delayed until 4AM. We then missed our connection in China. The only flight that was on time was one we wanted to be late. We had to go through the headache of customs in China and ended up getting back to Japan 21 hours after leaving for the airport in Malaysia.
August 2012: Generally, its been a difficult experience flying out of China as you can see above. This time we had an expected 8 hour layover in Shanghai. There is absolutely nothing to do in the international section of this airport. There are 4 restaurants that are identical and a coffee shop. China does not allow any social media so no Facebook or Twitter. Ahead of our flight, Matt (the guy i flew with) got a text from his dad saying our flight was delayed to the next morning. We had nothing in the airport so we thought that might be a mistake. How can a guy in the US know before the people in the airport right? Well we wait till 20 minutes before take off (11:30PM) . They tell us it has been switched to another gate. Finally after the flight was scheduled to leave. There was an announcement that there was a delay. We went to the counter to check on it. BOOM we had a delay until 7AM the next morning and they were going to put everyone in a hotel.
So at midnight we had to leave and go through customs. Customs in China is not pleasant. Generally, I always get the feeling that there is little to no communication between people at the airport. The airline knows whats going on but the customs people dont. So we have hundreds of people trying to get through customs and the agents have no clue whats going on. An hour later we get through and head to the bus. One would expect it to be the hotel right by the airport. NOPE, it was 45 minutes away. By 2:30 we got to the hotel and had a wake up call of 4:30. I woulda been happier just sleeping at the airport. The only saving grace of the day is that I woke up minutes before being able to watch the US Womens Soccer take gold against Japan.
DECEMBER 2012:
After traveling for nearly 30 hours, it was smooth sailing until we got on the runway in Chicago heading to Grand Rapids. After about 30 minutes, the captain comes on explaining that we were overweight and we either need to get rid of people or bags and he chose bags. He said that about 15 of them would not make it. Knowing my luck (see above), something was going to be missing. I get to Grand Rapids to find that one of my bags never made it on the carousel. I had two bags, one with presents and one with all of my clothes and jacket. The one with my clothes did not make it. I had to open a present just to be dressed for church Christmas eve. The bag finally was shipped to me at around midnight Christmas morning.
They say half the fun of going there is getting there :-P
ReplyDeleteYeah, I don't want to fly with you again....
ReplyDelete