Saturday, December 16, 2006

Day 2: Delay and complications

My flight from Chicago to Japan was supposed to leave at 11am. Unfortunately, it was first delayed to 12 and then later on 3:00pm, which leads to series of crazy phone calls. Luckily I was checking in from Chicago, not connecting, so I did not have to wait in a big line in the gate. The lady was so nice and she was trying to get me on one of the flights to Hanoi from Japan. I was standing at the check-in counter for an hour listening to her on the phone calling everywhere.
"I tried to call Vietnam airlines but the line is busy."
Chip and me laughed, it was 11pm Hanoi time, maybe they felt asleep or went out for a midnight snack, you know Vietnam.
"Ok they have plenty of seats, I will put you on the 11am flight to Hanoi. Wait, what, it was canceled?"
Well, well, whatever. Giang suggested the plane should delay for 2 days so I can wait for Viet. Hah.
"Ok I got you to HongKong, but I can not get you on any flight from HongKong to Hanoi."
Ok, i get to visit Hongkong then.
"Wait! There is a flight tomorrow from Japan to Hanoi operated by China airlines."
Excuse me! China? I don't do China airlines, i hate China. For some reason she did not book me for that one, well i was a little lucky then?
We were so bored at the counter that we started to weight how much force Chip put on the luggage, and how much my backpack weight. (13 pounds wow). And called people, and people called, I must have spent all the minutes for the month right there.
Finally, around 12, she worked everything out, I had to stay in Japan for a night, and take that 11am flight. And American Airlines would pay for the hotel, and meals, hah no problem.

We arrived Japan around 8pm Tokyo time, and the airport was empty. They couldn't find my name on whatever they had on the table, so I had to wait and ding ding ding, I realized that I already had the ticket and that was why they did not have my name on. Anyway, it was just for the hotel, which was in the middle of nowhere and 2 hours away from Tokyo. I thought I would get to go in Tokyo and went crazy in there, but we ended up in a hotel with a bar that closed at midnight.
So.. with nothing to do and an original plan of drinking, we (me and a friend) went to the bar for a drink, and bought a bottle of wine. Then we got an extra bottle of wine as a gift of the one we bought.
"It's cheap. It's only $10 in the US for this bottle."
"Well then we won't drink it. Just bring it back and give it to someone else."

So we were watching Friends and drinking the sparkling champagne. I can not remember now the reason why we went downstairs to use the internet and how we bought coffee because I remember we didn't have that much change. I can't even understand what I typed on Ducky's wall. Maybe we went down to ask for something, but they didn't have it. By the end of the night, the 2nd bottle was gone with Southpark and Family guy. I passed out completely.

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