Saturday morning we woke around 0530, Japan time and before the day was over we had spent 36 hours traveling and still weren't done.
We ate breakfast in the hotel, finished packing then checked out about 1030. Since our flight wasn't until ten minutes after midnight we didn't want to get to Haneda too early so we checked our bags with the concierge and walked through some of the back streets of the Minamiazabu area round our hotel.
Space is at a premium in Tokyo so, while there are shrines and public parks with open spaces, most of the space is tightly filled with buildings. The main streets have stores, restaurants, beauty shops and even a Maserati dealership near our hotel. The large blocks are divided into smaller sections with small streets serving smaller restaurants, smaller businesses and some houses. Houses are often only twelve or fifteen feet wide but extend back into the lot perhaps 30 or 35 feet and are often three floors high. This allows the maximum of street exposure for other buildings such as small restaurants and other commercial buildings.
As we walked around the back streets we came across what looked like an old fashioned yakitori restaurant/bar. It was still closed but had an Japanese and Engish menu in the window listing all the different skewers on offer. No time to sample the goods this trip. Maybe next time we're in the area.
During the past week as we've walked back and forth to the subway station, and again today as we walked around town, both Ikuko an I commented on the number of small children who were making there way to or from school or whatever business they had. They were walking along by themselves or with another small child with no apparent concern for bad guys. We've always seen school children going to and coming from but these children were five and six years old. It seemed so strange to see them on their own. Something you wouldn't see in our times in the US.
Those young children did remind me of when I was in the first grade and waked about a mile each way to my elementary school when we lived in Alderwood during the War. I'm not sure what has caused the changes in the intervening seventy-some years but those earlier, more trusting days are still alive and well in Japan.
Back at the hotel we retrieved our bags and caught a cab to Hamamatsucho Station, took escalators up a couple floors then caught an express monorail to Haneda International Terminal. A trip that I had expected to be an hour or more turned out to be about ten minutes in the taxi and 13 minutes on the monorail plus five minutes transfer time.
When we went through the security line there was a small family group ahead of us so the watching supervisor called us over to her window, scanned the Q-Code on the inbound page of our passports and sent us through the X-Ray line. I was asked to remove my laptop from my bag but nothing about shoes, belts, small bottles of liquids (drinking liquid bottles were banned) or other impediments to speed. We were through security quickly.
Haneda is the fifth busiest airport in the world but it just doesn't feel like it. The quick inspections mean people don't have to show up three hours early and the crowds around the departure gates don't build until 30-40 minutes before scheduled departures plus the terminal seems like it is more spread out. SEA seems much more crowded even though it is only the 31st busiest airport in the world.
So there we were at Haneda Airport with nine hours to kill until our scheduled departure at ten minutes after midnight. It seemed like a long time but not impossible and we would be home in Seattle by 2230 or so. Little did we know what surprises awaited us.
About 1730 our flight showed up on the Departures board but it was listed as "delayed" with an estimated departure of 0345 Sunday morning.
Fortunately Haneda is as comfortable as an airport can be. There are comfortable chairs, strategically placed dining areas with several cuisine choices in each area and there are even some pods of semi-recliner chairs with privacy soft walls on three sides so sleep is possible. Ikuko and I made ourselves as comfortable as we could, had dinner (sushi for me, curry rice for her) and even caught a few winks while waiting for the hours to creep by.
I must say that Delta made the delay as easy as possible by providing bottles of drinking water, sandwiches and other snacks and providing frequent updates.
Finally, about 0200 our flight arrived, passengers departed and the cleaning team did their thing. Our group of tired passengers boarded, got settled in and we pushed back at 0345. We made our way onto the taxiway headed for the end of the runway. Suddenly the plane slowed and stopped. After a few moments the captain announced that there was a problem with a fuel pump and we needed to return to the gate.
Fearing the worst we headed back to the gate, parked and waited. Finally good news. The trouble with the fuel pump was not mechanical (necessitating a long delay as replacement was made) but something in the software and a "reset" did the trick. We headed out to the runway again about 0500 Sunday morning Japan Time.
After a smooth ride across the Pacific we arrived in LAX ten plus hours later about 2215 Saturday night PDT. Again we sat on the tarmac waiting. Another announcement told us that there wasn't a slot for us (probably due to the upset schedule) so we would go elsewhere and be bused to the Immigration and Customs area.
By this time our scheduled connection to Seattle was long gone. We thought we might be able to catch a 2330 flight on Alaska but after the bus ride and entry to the Immigration area we kissed that idea goodbye. It took us 35 minutes just to get through the line at Immigration then another while to clear Customs so we finally got out into the night air and re-entered Delta's Terminal 5 a few minutes after midnight Saturday night. We had been traveling through two Saturdays (thanks to the International Date Line) for about 36 hours and still weren't home.
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