Time to Kill

Posted byrandy@letters-to-rachel.memorialPosted inAdrift in the World, Along the Way, Updates From the Abandoned PlanetTags:, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dearest Rachel –

Tuesday, and we’re up once again well before the city is, at five a.m. That gives us seven or eight hours to kill before our bus – the bell clerk recommended that we take the 12:40 departure, as opposed to the 11:40, which would leave us just over two hours before our flight to check in and do what we need to before boarding our flight. I’m guessing that security procedures at Narita aren’t as involved as they are back in the States.

After paying cash for the bus fare to Narita, this is all the cash I have left from my withdrawal from the ATM when we first got here. The Suica cards each have somewhere between seven and eight hundred yen, but I guess we’ll have to save them for our next trip here. Again, it’s wild that we’re getting back here nearly every year nowadays, and you never got to see it happen (unless, of course, you’re keeping an eye on us like I keep asking you to).
And… it would be raining and cold on a day like this. On the other hand, it allows me to comfortably dress in layers (so I don’t to pack as tightly as all that), and makes me grateful for our transport option; this would have been that much worse to be doing via public transportation.
Daniel had his heart set on Mister Donut (which, over here in the States, was absorbed into the Dunkin’ chain years before he was even born) for breakfast this morning. The Japan Eat channel isn’t fond of the place, but we wanted to figure out why; it can’t be that bad, can it? Japan doesn’t do anything badly – especially when it comes to food – does it? Unfortunately, the place was closed when we stopped by – apparently, they don’t open until nine, which seems odd for a breakfast place. Then again, do the Japanese consider donuts a breakfast food?
On our way back to the hotel, we passed through the depaato area on the west side of the station. While most of the storefronts were still closed, there was a coffee shop open; and lo and behold, they even offered a mocha option, the first such beverage I’d seen since arriving in Japan.
However, Daniel still had his heart set on Mister Donut, so we made a point to return when the place opened up. He’s also taken to the apple juice they sell throughout the country (although he wasn’t as impressed by Nagano’s apples in particular; ‘too sweet,’ he insists).
A couple of bites into my ‘angel cream’ donut, and I was starting to understand Japan Eat’s antipathy; where’s the cream, anyway? And yes, feel free to ask that in a Clara Peller voice if you want.
Of course, a bite or two later, it finally showed itself, so I hadn’t that much to complain about. At the same time, both the pastry and the cream were fluffy to the point of almost being insubstantial. Daniel, too, thought his chocolate donut was a bit on the dry side. Well, now we know better; sometimes you just have to find out for yourself.
Given that, Daniel gave me permission (funny thing that, when I’m the one paying) to stop over at Tully’s for my mocha and the chili dog, which is surprisingly small itself, all things considered (please, no off-color jokes). Granted, Daniel’s comment was that Japan makes french fries which are longer than these hot dogs. It also has a slightly tough skin to it, requiring a firm bite to get through it, but it’s not terrible for all that. And the chili, while having a bit more emphasis on its beans than the ‘carne’ it touts itself as being ‘con,’ is pleasantly spicy; more so than the curry sauce for yesterday’s toast.
By the time I was finished eating like a hobbit (second breakfast and all that), I decided to open the curtains to get one last view of the city from our room. A good thing I did, too, as the rain we had been dealing with outside earlier had now turned to snow; what a sight! It made me doubly glad for Daniel’s misadventure yesterday that allowed us to spot the option to take the bus, rather than trying to take (and switch) trains to get to Narita.
Shortly after opening the curtains and taking that picture, the temperature difference between the outside and inside caused the window to fog up; Daniel proceeded to write “I love Japan” in kanji on it as a lark.

Since we had to check out by eleven o’clock anyway (and even with going out and doing breakfast at two different places, we had plenty of time to pack up and get down to the lobby to do so), I thought I would ask the front desk if we could reschedule our shuttle to the airport. If we’re going to be sitting around cooling our heels anywhere, better that it be where we need to be, rather than where we might worry if we can get where we need to be on time. At it turned out, the change was a simplicity itself; I presented the receipt I’d been given when I first made the reservation, and they gave me a new one with the earlier time on it.

Now, all the time we had to kill at the hotel was some forty minutes or so; just enough to finish my letter to you about Shinjuku and Kabuki-cho. No, really; just as I was wrapping up and hitting ‘send,’ a hotel employee passed us with a sign announcing that the Narita-bound shuttle had arrived, and we had ten minutes or so to get ourselves together and onto the bus. It feels like a short amount of time, and for some things, it is, but we had time to close up our computers, pack them up, and head outside to the bus stop. There was a moment’s confusion when the driver seemed to try to establish how many of us there were (as I was the only one with a receipt for the transfer), but I made a gesture indicating that there were two of us, and everything seemed to go smoothly.

After an hour and change of riding, we arrived at the airport, going from terminal to terminal; first three, then two, and then finally one, which was our stop. However, at terminal two, one of the staffers there called out if anyone else was needing to disembark, because there was an unclaimed bag at the stop. It was my suitcase; evidently the question the driver had asked had to do with which terminal we were to stop at, and I had misunderstood the question. Still, I confirmed that the bag was mine, and that I was proceeding to terminal one, and everything was fine.

At the terminal, the check-in process went fairly smoothly until we got to Daniel’s suitcase. Somehow, despite having been fine for the trip out, it was too big for us to ship home without an additional fee. Oh, well… these things happen.

That sorted, the next question had to do with finding our gate. The map showed nothing on the floor we were on – so where did we need to go? I noticed some signage about “International Departures,” but it only took us to the opposite wing of the terminal. We would have been better off on the wing we were already on; at least it was by the airline we would be flying with. Eventually, we made our way deeper into the terminal and found the security checkpoint; that process was fairly routine, apart from the fact that Daniel had to use three bins to run his carry-on possessions through the X-ray machine – and then had to reassemble himself. After that, we were guided to ‘Immigration’ (which confused me, since that seemed like it would be for incoming travelers); Daniel got through the facial recognition procedures with no problem, but the computers couldn’t seem to work out my face, and I wasn’t about to shave to make myself match my picture just yet. At least they had human clerks I could pass by, and be waved through from there, with Daniel waiting for me on the other side.

At least the fact that we had this issue suggested that we’d making the right decision to leave an extra hour earlier. We made it to our gate at three, two hours before departure, which suggests that we could have made it had we waited, but it would have gotten quite tense by the end of it all. Better to have time to kill here than to spend time with the anxiety killing me elsewhere.

Anyway, I’ll see if I can get back to you once we land honey, but until we do, I’d hope you could keep an eye on us, and wish us luck. As always, we’re going to need it.

Published by randy@letters-to-rachel.memorial

I am Rachel's husband. Was. I'm still trying to deal with it. I probably always will be.

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