It was a pretty long journey: I left my apartment Sunday afternoon (December 21) and took the local train to Fukuoka where I stayed the night in a hostel. The train stopped for some reason for about 40 minutes on the way there which turned the 2.5 hour long ride into over 3 hours. Monday morning I caught a plane from Fukuoka to Kansai International Airport. After that was the long 12 hour flight from Kansai International to Detroit. Let's just say there were a lot of babies on that flight, the plane was crappy and we didn't have our own screens, and I had a middle seat in the middle row. Upon arriving in Detroit Monday afternoon, we were informed that the temperature outside was 1 degree F (or -17C)! I've never traveled anywhere by plane over Christmas holidays, so this was my first time experiencing the "holiday rush" at the airport... and it didn't let me down. Immigration took forever, customs took forever - people were everywhere. Let me just say, too, that people are not very pleasant to be around after they've been on an airplane for 12+ hours. Just saying.
My 1pm flight from Detroit to Chicago was delayed about 5 hours. Yes, 5 hours. I think we sat on the ground - in the plane - longer than we were actually in the air. At one point we had to de-board the plane because there was some "security breach" (as they called it). Apparently nobody had checked the plane after maintenance... or something like that.
Since my flight was delayed 5 hours, I didn't make it into Chicago until after 6pm. I was supposed to catch a bus from Union Station at 6pm. Didn't happen. Luckily my friend Andrew had planned to pick me up from O'hare and drive me to Union Station - so he knew what was going on and offered to let me stay the night at his parent's house. So I stayed the night and spent my first night back in America watching the Bear's game with Andrew and his parents. It was actually pretty nice. I'm just glad I didn't have to spend the night in the airport.
My mom was nice and bought me a plane ticket that left first thing Tuesday morning from O'Hare to Indianapolis. That was the best choice ever because later that day there was a HUGE snow storm in Chicago that delayed HUNDREDS of flights and people were stranded at Union Station for 11 hours because no trains would run.
So I made it to Indianapolis Tuesday morning, finally.
All I have to say is that I'm never flying Northwest Airlines ever again.
Even though it took forever to get home - like I said to begin with - I'm still really glad I went. I'm missing out on my little sister's high school graduation in May and a family reunion in July... so I think being home for Christmas helps make up for some of the family things I'm missing out on in the coming year.
The journey back to Japan wasn't nearly as bad. My mom and my little sister drove me to Chicago and we had a little Chicago vacation the weekend before I had to come back. It was nice, but COLD!
My flight left early Monday morning (January 5th) and no flights were delayed (thank God). I flew from Chicago to Detroit, Detroit to Kansai International, and Kansai International to Fukuoka. The flight from Detroit to Kansai was way over booked and they offered me a FIRST CLASS seat if I'd take a flight that went from Detroit to Nagoya and then Nagoya to Fukuoka instead of the one I had... and I was all excited to take it... until I found out that it didn't arrive in Fukuoka until 50 minutes after my original flight. What's the problem with that? Well, with the time that my original flight got in, I was BARLEY making the last train back to Yamaguchi... and I would definetly not make it back in time if I got in 50 minutes later. So I opted out of a sweet first class seat from America to Japan in order to not get stuck in Fukuoka... because although the flight would've been 100 times better than my economy seat could ever be... it totally would've sucked to get stuck in Fukuoka for the night... and I had to be back to work the next day. But anyway. At least I got an aisle seat this time instead of the middle of the middle row.
So yeah, what I meant to say with this post is that it was good to be back in America and see my family and friends over the holidays.
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