A later blog post will deal with my time in the U.S., but I want to discuss my current travel experience while it is still fresh (in fact I’m in the air as I write this.)
I have had an outstanding track record of flights being on time, and ideal seating arrangements, however my record took a brutal hit yesterday as I flew from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Tokyo.
I couldn’t have asked for a better itinerary… flying out of La Crosse airport is somewhat of a joke as they basically ask if you’re carrying any drugs/firearms and don’t even listen to your response. I landed in MSP with a few hours to kill so I put down my last burger for the foreseeable future (jalapeño & bacon), and find my gate. G4 is a great gate if you ever find yourself in the MSP airport with time to kill because it sits next to the Leines Lodge. The LL has a deal where if you get a beer you get a discounted shot of whatever you want, and me, being the economically minded person that I am, couldn’t resist. I made friends with the barkeep and the two other guys who were bellying up to the bar with me. Gary, the old guy pouring the drinks, was a great guy who just wanted to shoot the breeze with anyone willing to chat about sports. Wearing a Wisconsin sweatshirt made me an obvious target, and in return for chatting about anything related to Wisconsin/Minnesota I got to try “sample shots” of all the whiskeys behind the bar. Lucky for me, Gary has a worse tremor than I do in his hands and every “sample” turned into legitimate shots of high-end whiskey. I’ll be visiting Gary again next time I’m home =)
Feeling good, I hop on my 747 to take on the 11.5 hour flight. Sitting next to me was a guy from La Crosse who was a year older than me, and graduated from Central High a year before me. Small world I guess. He was on his first trip to his home country of Laos with his mom and I think aunt.
About 4 or 5 hours into the flight we hear over the PA that if there are any doctors on the plane they were needed at row 65. I was in the middle of the plane and saw about 6 or 8 men dash to the back of the plane to offer their assistance. I guess another 6 or 8 were behind me too because they had to push back the crowd of doctors ready to help. It’s comforting to know there are so many helpful people on the plane with you. I’ve heard a lot of stories about what happened ranging from a simple diabetic issue and that the person was stable, to the patient was actually without a pulse for a minute. I’m not exactly sure what happened but I don’t think they would make us land in Fairbanks, Alaska if the person just needed some insulin. But, that’s what we did. And this is where the fecal matter hit the wind maker. In order to land so early in the flight we had to dump fuel to get down to a reasonable landing weight. When we landed they couldn’t close the fuel tank’s cap so mechanics had to be flown in to fix our plane (I doubt Fairbanks has much experience with 747’s). Then our plane had essentially turned to ice so we had to be de-iced but their de-icer was broke… so now that mechanic had to fix that. Luckily I managed to sleep through a fair amount of the 5 hours we spent in Fairbanks (thanks Gary!). I guess everyone got really thirsty in Fairbanks because everyone and their mother drank all the liquids on the plane… and of course when I woke up I had a case of cottonmouth.
So we were about 5-6 hours late to Tokyo’s Narita Int’l Airport… The airport closed as we were arriving at our gate, and it was clear that no one on the plane was making a connecting flight. Delta had about 20 people there to take care of us and give us new connecting flights and hotel arrangements. After everyone got situated we got to exit the airport and take a shuttle bus to the hotel that housed everyone. I got a nice hotel room, dinner (at midnight) and breakfast. This was also a great reminder of how important a well thought out carry-on is. I was without a second set of clothes, toothpaste, deodorant, etc… Luckily I found most of these items in the hotel. Also, a bottle of water in case you end up on the tarmac (spelling?) for 5 hours and the plane nearly runs dry.
While waiting for my flight I had an opportunity to check out a duty-free shop in Narita Airport, and found one of Japan’s finest single malts, or so the kind lady told me. She’s probably blowing smoke, but I’m in no position to argue so I am now the proud of owner of a bottle of whiskey I can’t pronounce.
After seeing what chaos one delayed 747 can do, I cannot even begin to imagine what a few days of blizzards and cancelations would do to JFK (about 10 days ago).
Now, I am on my flight back to Seoul’s Incheon Int’l Airport on an Asiana flight. I love Asiana and Korean Air… the flight attendants are so much nicer and nicer looking. In fact they’ve got me excited to get back to Korea. I was a bit down about leaving Madison, but this last flight has me pretty excited to get back to my Korean digs.
Although my travel record took a beating in the last 24 hours, I realized how much I love the entire process of traveling. Hopefully my next flight goes a bit better, though.
