8.5 Hours in Tokyo - Nech does Japan

That's right. Already delayed one night in Detroit, I opted to delay myself even more by convincing NWA to allow me to stay the night in Tokyo.. Initially offered 9:45 or 11 AM flights the next morning, I was given a 7 AM flight instead without paid hotel. I figured this was ok - I could still spend the night in Tokyo and return to the airport in the morning. The girl waiting on line next to me was less certain. "You know", she said, "people in Japan don't speak English very much."
"Don't worry, I speak Mandarin."
"Putonghua??!!" [Mandarin]
"id'ar" [a little]
She grimaced.

I was wrong about about staying in Tokyo overnight. Tokyo was a 1.5 hour train ride from Narita, and the first train only arrived 6:30 AM; I needed to board at 6 AM. I decided to just sleep on a bench in the airport instead. And by the time I got my new ticket, some Yen, 3 maps, 2 train schedules, a tourist guide from the information booth, and arrived in Tokyo, it was already 2:30 and the last train back to Narita was 11 PM.

In those 8.5 hours in Tokyo, I got to see the imperial palace, meditate in Tokyo's oldest Buddhist Temple (I got a good fortune), take a boat down the central river, walk around a Japanese mall, enjoy a stroll over Rainbow Bridge, and ride up Tokyo's tallest tower.

As exciting as that was, the real adventure came only when I left Tokyo at 11 PM. Though I had been successfully albeit slowly navigating the metro until then, I missed one of the transfers on the way to Narita. Luckily, I realized this a mere two stops later. Unluckily, that was still five minutes too late and I was stuck for the night in the random Japanese city of Abiko. At least it was safe in the train station.

Then the station closed. After failing to convince security to allow me to stay, I found myself stranded on the street.

So that's how I found myself huddled up in a nook in front of a hair salon two stories up overlooking a little convenience store (open 24 hours) and a parking lot containing 3 cabs. Every once in a while some people would walk into the store. Sometimes they were drunk. Every time I heard footsteps I would jump a bit. Thankfully, nobody came up those stairs. I figured it was a bad idea to go to sleep, so I stayed up and read The Audacity of Hope.

At 5 AM the station opened and I got hot chocolate from a machine.
At 5:30 I boarded the first train to Narita, which only got in at 6:30. Uh oh (I had found this out the night before, but I had no real alternative).
At 6:30 I ran from the station to my best guess as to the departure area. Nobody was there. Fortunately, my guess was right, because I finally find one guy who asks as I'm approaching, "Hong Kong?", which apparently was the only flight leaving before 8 AM. He rushes me over somewhere, where I showed my ticket, put my bag through security, but then was told that I was too late.

Ten minutes later I was on the plane. Four hours later I was in Hong Kong, 60 hours after I had left New York. I was very ready for a change of clothes and some deoderant.

Then I noticed a paper stuck to an upside-down container on the luggage carousel.

"NECHEMYA ELIEZER KAGEDAN, please see NWA ground staff for baggage information."

I did eventually get my bag - another 30 hours later.

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Introduction

Hey you! If you're reading this, it means that you are too lazy to get off your butt and go to China and want to live vicariously through me instead. Or you just care about me and want to see how I'm doing. Either way, I've had a few requests to keep people updated, so I figured I'd give it a shot. As much as I'll try to limit my posts to super-funny and/or exciting happenings, I am not a super-funny or exciting person, so don't get your hopes up too high.
In order to keep me posting and you knowing when to read, I will guarantee a new post every other Wednesday - beginning with yesterday, August 20.
If you like it, feel free to talk about it by the water cooler and check back every once in a while. It'll be here. Much thanks to Tal Raviv for his inspiration in my journey and BFink among others who will be joining me in HKUST.
I'd love to hear from y'all about how your doing, so please shoot me an e-mail or even reply to a post (if you want your voice to be heard by my legions of readers).

With love and (hopefully) wit,
miss you all already,
Nech

What not to do when getting your visa

After running into some technical difficulties trying to get my Chinese visa, I found my savior - Fiona (Chen), my friend Guli's travel agent. I call her and hear a voice say, "ni hou." Somewhere in my brain, the Mandarin tapes I've been listening to tell me that that means "hello" in Mandarin, and I should flex my new skillz and say "ni hou" back.

I stammer a "hi." Strike one.

Either way, we get past that and my butchering of Minguang Zhu (Guli's dad) (his name, not that actual dad), and work out the details. I print out my bank account statement, visa form, flight itinerary to hong kong, passport picture, get a bank check, and stick all that and my passport in a usps priority mail envelope at the post office. I weigh it, add a bunch of stamps, seal it closed, and stick it in the mail box.

Two blocks later i realized that i had written no address. Or return address. Strike two.

I go to china in three weeks and just lost my passport.

So I mosey back to the post office right in front of the mailbox, but they didn't have the key to open it. Now it was 4:45 and I had been skipping work for the last hour and a half. I realized that my best bet was to wait until the mailman came at 5:30, but that was a long time to wait and my long absence at work was probably a little suspicious. So I, foolishly, abandon the mailbox to go to my office for a few minutes, grab a book and return at 5:00 to continue my stalk. By 6:30 still no mailman and I had to leave; apparently he had come in those 15 minutes I was at work. Thus, I abandoned my passport to fate.

Strike 3.

But before i went, out of desperation I wrote 2 notes to the anonymous mailman who may yet have held my fate in his hands, each explaining what had happened. I added the address of the travel agent and put one inside the mailbox and the other set to pop out when the box was opened.

After 3 days of suspense, I e-mailed Fiona to ask if she got the package. (Not that I thought she had gotten it; at this point I was really hoping that they opened up the envelope, found my passport and bank statement, and sent it to my house.)


I finally get the reply - "Got it yesterday, no problems."

whew.

anonymous mailman: you are my hero