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| World's nicest airport bathroom, by a mile. |
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| Don't mind if I do. |
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| A welcome respite. |
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| I haven't seen a lot of lactation rooms, but this one seems pretty nice. |
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| Nap time for the International Baby of Mystery |
After an hour to recharge, we headed over to the Japan Air Lines terminal to find our gate. When boarding was announced, Aimee and I braced for another red light to come on when our passes were scanned. But to our surprise, green lights through and through. They kept Mimi's infant boarding pass ("Card we keep" said the Japanese gate agent), and handed seat assignments to Aimee and I. 22 K and H didn't seem all that special, and probably not even next to each other. But we were just happy to make it on the plane without any surprises.
As we made our way down the aisle, a growing excitement came over me as I saw where we were sitting. Another bulkhead row! At this point, multiple American Airlines employees had gone out of their way to make our journey far easier than it could have been. We're going to bring an infant with us on every trip!
After a smooth takeoff, the pilot came on the PA to do his thing. But since he wasn't ordering coffee, I had no idea what he was saying. Then the flight attendant took over to translate to English. Unfortunately, I understood her completely fine. "Ladies and gentlemen, the pilot has informed us that due to mechanical difficulties, we are diverting to the nearest airport for repairs." Woah, woah, woah. This was supposed to be the uneventful portion of the trip.
I played the last five minutes back in my head. The majority Japanese crowd didn't bat an eye when the pilot made his announcement. Are you guys hearing this? Is this a cultural thing? Do you only know how to say, "Hello. Two coffees. Thank you," too? I was equal parts impressed and confused.
When a second announcement told us that we'd be heading back to Tokyo, Aimee and I looked at each other excitedly and thought about how cool a bonus night in Tokyo would be. Then we felt bad that our first thought wasn't about wanting the plane to land safely. "Yeah, whatever. These planes are built with backup systems. We'll be fine. Sushi!!" was more or less what was running through my head.
As we began our descent into Tokyo, we saw another plane that couldn't have been more than two hundred yards to our right (or starboard side, pirates and Jimmy Buffet fans). Then the other plane noticeably decelerated and pulled up. Holy crap. We're making an emergency landing, and they're getting out of our way. Sushi was no longer my first priority. But it was still a close second.
The landing was as uneventful as could have been expected, but our plane just stayed out on the taxiway. The flight attendents kept coming on the PA to let us know that the flight crew was inspecting the issue, but they didn't give us much more information than that. Two hours later, we were still stuck on the plane. The crowd was remarkably calm, and like some sort of miracle baby, Mimi stayed sleeping the whole time.
The flight attendants eventually came back on the PA and told us that we'd be switching planes and heading to Saigon later that night (it was now around 11pm). Looks like sushi would have to wait. The crew gave us some jumbled instructions and passed out plastic reboarding cards. Many of us passengers huddled to combine the 3 or 4 words we each heard to string together a reasonably clear understanding of the situation.
Tokyo has two airports, and we were fortunate enough to explore both of them on the same trip. We used our meal vouchers for some decent Yaki-soba and marveled at our still-sleeping baby. Two hours later, reboarding began. A Japan Air Lines agent stood a few feet before the gate to pre-check passports and collect the plastic boarding cards. Not five seconds later, we reached the actual gate and showed the agent our original boarding passes. But the agent pointed at Mimi, "Card for baby?" I asked if they were talking about the plastic reboarding card, and pointed at the JAL employee that collected it not 1.5 steps earlier. The gate agent looked past him to a passenger at the end of the line and starts walking over to collect my card from him. "No, sir, that guy," I said pointing to the prescreening agent. The gate agent again looked past him in the other direction. Wondering if the sleep deprivation was causing me to hallucinate, I slightly more sternly pointed to the pre-screening agent and commandingly say, "No. Him. Your employee."
"Oh! Him!"
For F's sake. Of course him.
But the prescreening agent just looked up and shrugged his shoulders. Is this some bizarre Japanese TV stunt? Unreal. I turned back to the four or five gate agents collecting tickets (several of which were the flight attendants from our last flight), and projected my voice to all of them. "Really, guys? You all remember me. The man with the baby," I said, pointing to the small human strapped to my torso. The subtext of my announcement was to ask how many six and a half foot tall Americans have they seen with a baby carrier on this flight? The other agents perked up, and the one holding my passport said in a quiet voice, "I'm sorry, sir. Please continue forward."
As I waked by, I misrecalled one of the three Japanese words I knew, and thanked the agents with a simple, "Hello". But at least I didn't order a coffee.
Aimee was waiting for me on the Jetway, and I asked her if the pre-screening agent collected her card before she got to the gate, too. "Yep," she said. "Huh," I shrugged. "That was weird."
Our second Tokyo to Ho Chi Minh City flight was relatively uneventful. And as predicted, the last few hours were the longest. But we made it to Vietnam with our sanity intact, if five hours late.
Now, as an aside, Aimee and I like to think of ourselves as pretty spartan travelers. But there are two luxuries that we find ourselves splurging on more often these days. The first is that we no longer stay in hostels. Because, as Aimee puts it, "I'm not in the Peace Corps anymore." The second is the prearranged airport pickup. That had always seemed like a sucker's game to me, and was an easy way to spend twice as much money on a cab ride to the hotel. But when you're arriving to a new city at four in the morning (with a baby, in this case), there's something infinitely reassuring about seeing your name written on a white piece of paper. I already know I'm over paying, so I don't need to watch the meter, and I don't have to worry about whether we end up at our hotel, a police station, or a dark alley.
That said, we arrived five hours later than scheduled, and had no idea if our ride would still be there. I had sent an email to our hotel over a spotty wifi connection in Tokyo, but I was hardly convinced that they would see it in time. So, after 34 hours of travel, we showed a borderline-inappropriate level of appreciation when we saw that the shuttle driver was still there waiting for us.
And as for where we are staying, this place is definitely no hostel.
