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slightly astray

an honest look at life on the road

I’m headed to Japan! (… At least, trying to…)

Dear travel gods,

I only ask to please be delivered to D safely, and hopefully with all my marbles in tact. I think I may be losing a few hour by hour. This is the worst travel between two destinations I’ve ever experienced.

You see, I started my journey at approximately 10 pm last night in Los Angeles. I was already pretty tired but still in mostly high spirits. After close to two months apart, I was going to rejoin D in Osaka in just another day or so! I was also excited because after a year and a half of traveling carry-on only, I had decided to check in an extra bag, filled with cute clothes and shoes. D and I are traveling at a much slower pace now and it’d be nice to not look like homeless nomads. I mean, just one extra duffle bag is not so much of a burden, right?

At the check in counter, I was told that my 1 am flight was delayed to 4 am due to typhoons in Taipei, where my connection is. Okay, no biggie since logically, it should mean that my 8 hour layover would be shortened, right? But I gotta admit, by the time I finally boarded the flight, I was more than a little grumpy. Especially when I saw that the window seat I had requested for the 14-hour flight turned out to be the dreaded middle seat.

But luck ended up being on my side when I got to the seat to find it being occupied by a man, whose ticket indicated a window seat. Somehow, he and his wife had window seats in different rows. I told him to go ahead and stay next to his wife and happily took his seat a row up. Being a shortie at 5 foot nothing, I struggled to heave my carry-on up to the luggage compartment, especially as I had to first do some rearranging. No one stepped in to help. God, solo travel really sucks for the vertically challenged.

“I got my window seat”, I messaged D. “But the guy next to me took off his shoes and it smells like sweaty feet.”
“You’re so cranky,” he replied.
“You would be too if you’re still awake at 4 am.”

But little did I know that my journey was just starting.

Upon my arrival to Taipei at 8 am local time, I was dismayed to see that my connecting flight has also been delayed… to 8 pm! Are you kidding me?! Not only did the first delay not help the situation, the second delay actually increased the layover time to 12 hours?! Efforts to get on standby for an earlier flight failed as my checked luggage could not be brought over in time and I didn’t want to risk losing it. Damn! I’m regretting that extra bag already!

“It should be ok,” I told D. “My flight is at 8 pm, so I should still have time to take the last train into town from the airport.”

“You don’t. Japan is one hour ahead so you actually get in just before midnight.”

Double damn! Panic slowly set in. Midnight. And then customs to go through still. This means no more trains into town. No more currency exchange. No more data stores. I saw myself stranded at the airport with no Japanese yen or a way to communicate with D.

As I write this, I’m parked on the cold tile floor next to a wall plug, watching the time slowly tick by. I’ve resigned to the fact that I will not be sinking into a fluffy bed tonight next to D. I’m thinking I’ll have to spend the night at the airport. Maybe I’ll even pay for a lounge.

So I guess all this rambling is to say that travel really sucks sometimes. So please, travel gods, all I want is to be delivered into D’s waiting arms, look up and see his smile, and know that all this hassle has been worth it.

Tired and slightly panicked,
Anna

Update: Flight delayed again to midnight 1:30 am 5:00 am! Here is the moral: avoid flying in and out of Taipei at all cost! Those typhoons, man….

What was your worst transit experience? Again, thank you everyone for sticking with me through my blog absence. Talk to you guys again from Japan (if I ever make it…)!!

Comments

  2. Yay! Happy to hear that you’re back on the road again which means your sis is doing better :) But boo to flight woes. Hope you get to Japan soon (and maybe we can see if we can meet up still? I’ll be there Oct 8 – 19).

  3. Haha wow, a delay from 8 am to 8 pm to 1:30 am is just cray. I’m sure you are miserable. Is there a “Okay, Ima get a room in Taipei and you just call me when I need to board the plane” option? Godspeed, Anna.

  4. Oh no that sounds like a total nightmare. I really hope you’re not too stranded and that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel somehow! All this bad luck has got to turn to good at some point… right?!

    • Don’t worry! I finally made it after just about 48 hours in transit. Seriously the worst I’ve ever experienced! but still, travel woes are worth it because it still means I’m traveling! :)

  5. Aw I hate travelling like that when things just keep happening! Isn’t it always like when one things goes wrong it all goes wrong! I almost missed a flight out of Canada in June, but finally caught it and when I got on the plane they had given me a middle seat instead of the window seat I had reserved. And I feel horrible to say this, but it was between two overweight people – worst 8 hours ever!

    • ugh that is the worst!!!! When I travel together with D, I ALWAYS get stuck with the middle seat because we want to sit together and he’s bigger, so he wants the aisle seat. Which means middle seat for me all the time. I guess that’s one negative of traveling as a couple haha! I’m so glad I was still able to get window!

  6. Doesn’t the airlines compensate you with vouchers and hotel rooms for such a long delay? I once had a flight from KL to Guangzhou delayed multiple times, from 2am to 10am to 8pm to 4am the next day. We got meal vouchers and there were buses to ferry us to a nearby hotel with free rooms to freshen up. It was frustrating, but the airlines went out of their way to make the frustration slightly bearable.

    • This was china airlines and I guess not hehe. By the end, they had no idea when flights would be. We finally boarded at 5 am! That airline you took sounds much better!

  10. Anna that sounds awful! It seems you made it eventually (yay!), but I totally get your frustrations. Those layovers can be sooo torturous. Especially on little to no sleep!