Adventures in Flight Delays

Actually, it wasn't as bad as the title makes it sound. Our flight to Toronto was delayed by over two hours (we blame Canada), meaning we would have about 20 minutes to catch our transfer to Narita, if everything went as planned. We spent the next two hours in lines getting transferred to a direct flight out of O'Hare (we blame Canada), then were the last people on the plane, as someone forgot to add us to United's computer system (we blame Air Canada). All in all, though, it ended up for the better (thanks, Canada!). The food was surprisingly good on the flight (Aloo Gobi for lunch and omelets for breakfast), it was a direct flight, and, leaving four hours later than originally planned, we arrived an hour earlier than we would have with our original flights.

Everything else about this trip has been amazingly easy. The customs and immigration lines were short in Narita, which never happens. Exchanging our cash was very fast. American Express has stopped issuing traveler's cheques, which was how we used to bring our money over, because the exchange rate was better than cash. The result of this was to spend almost half an hour with me signing fifty cheques, then one of the Japanese bankers signing all of them (well, stamping them with a hanko), then handing behind him to his superior to verify them, then handing behind HIM to the guy in charge of the bank branch to verify it again, meaning everyone counted my traveler's cheques about three times. The cash was put in a machine, which counted it, and boom, done. I think it's worth the 2 cents on the dollar for that.

We got to the Keisei Skyliner, the fast train to Ueno, got our tickets and boarded all in about ten minutes. Transferring to the Ginza line in Ueno took about the same, and in just over one hour we were standing in our hotel room.

This is starting out as one of the most boring blogs I've written. Nothing went very wrong and what did go wrong ended up being better in the long run. As the twenty hour day is setting in, I'll post more interesting things with some pics tomorrow about the neighborhood we're staying in and the local sights.