Ewens-Downing Adventures in Asia

After sleeping a couple hours to recover from “the incident“, I activated the rental cellphone I had delivered to the hotel via the web. I got in touch with Kenji, our friend who lives in the Yokohama area. We would meet Kenji at the Yokohama station and get some dinner together. So we took off for the local train station Sakuragicho that was just outside the Landmark Tower building we were staying in. We found a direct route from within the hotel around to a pedestrian bridge that went right to the station.

When we got to Yokohama station it finally set in: we were in Japan. Upon going downstairs to the main station platform we had to just stand for a bit taking it all in, there were hundreds of people… everywhere… going all different directions… silently not running into each other and getting to/from their trains. It was mind boggling for us initially. So many people in such a relatively small space. We stood with our mouths agape for a good couple minutes, wondering how we’d ever meet up with Kenji in this chaos. I called Kenji on cell phone and told him where we were in the station. In a few minutes he appeared ad we were off to find dinner.

On the way to dinner we went through some stores in the mall around the station. Inside the Yamaha music store Ron found an amusing package of “Piano Scatt” that I just had to have a picture of. Ron posed and made quite the funny face, don’t you agree? What ever could this package contain?? I did a Google search and couldn’t find anything. OK musicians, please comment and let us know what we found here. I assume it is some kind of piano cleaning supply?

We followed Kenji through the huge shopping mall, out into the streets of Yokohama that surrounded the station. There were blocks of restaurants and stores, all catering to the commuters returning from their jobs in Tokyo.

Kenji knew of a good sushi restaurant and we were game for our first taste of authentic sushi in Japan. It turns-out that this sushi restaurant was a “sushi belt” restaurant. In San Francisco we have sushi boat restaurants where plates of sushi revolve in front of patrons on wooden boats propelled along in a waterway by swift currents in a water trough. In Japan they don’t do this. Instead they use a revolving mechanical belt. This way the plates can make 90-degree turns with no problem.

We got a table and stared with amazement at the double-decker revolving belt. On the top level was the sushi plates along with little signs telling people (in Japanese) what things were. On the bottom level of the moving belt were tea cups, bowls and other dishes. “What a great idea,” I thought to myself.

To make the self-serve atmosphere even better we also had a hot water spigot right at our table. We could make all the tea we wanted, when we wanted, how we wanted. That was pretty cool. And what was inside the little bucket? It was FULL of picked ginger. Kenji ordered us up some special dishes as we grazed on a few things from the belt.

It was all very fresh and good. But because we had sushi in the US every couple weeks, it wasn’t too surprising of an experience for us. The one exception was the Miso Soup. Kenji ordered a bowl for him and one for us to share. It was a BIG bowl of miso soup had some salmon tails in it for meat. That was definitely pretty different from what they do in San Francisco. At first we didn’t quite know what to do with the tails. We had to learn to use our chopsticks better to get at the meat. Kenji showed us how and we finished our first meal in Japan.

After spending the day with our friend Ernie, we left the splendor of the Peninsula Hotel in another Rolls Royce limo and headed out to the Hong Kong airport. Our flight was on All Nippon Airways (ANA), a Boeing 747, again in Business Class. The nose end of the plane was configured for first class seating, but the seats were sold as business. We had huge full reclining bed seats. We had our creature comforts. Little did we know that we would soon lose all concept of what comfort was.

Before we boarded in Hong Kong, the gate staff unfurled a large sheet of paper that had written text in Japanese and English warning us that there was a typhoon expected in Tokyo that evening and we might not be able to land there. Why they didn’t just cancel at that point still astounds us. But we took off on-time and settled in for about a 4 hour flight.

As we flew over Japan, there were numerous announcements over the P.A. from the pilot, sometimes with a broken English translation, sometimes not. The chief purser was one of our business class stewardesses and several times she came before the two of us and the other two non-Japanese speakers (in this case two German businessmen) and knelt down with a worried brow explaining that we might not get to Tokyo. At one point, they were talking about landing in Osaka, which is about 3 to 4 hours by train from Tokyo. But the plane forged onward toward Tokyo, only having to circle for about an hour before the pilot said he was going in for a landing. We started down and the landing gear came down, but then the pilot pulled up sharply and then announced we couldn’t land and were going to Osaka, about an hour away and that we should land there at 10:25 pm. Ron asked the purser what that meant–would we get a hotel? Again, she had a furrowed brow and said something like she didn’t know but not to worry. Of course, we thought, the airline would take care of us. We were, after all, in business class, right?

We landed in Osaka about when they said we would but then waited at the gate for an hour and 20 minutes. They kept saying that there was no ground personnel available (saying “so sorry”). Just before midnight, they let us off the plane to the jet way where ANA staff was handing out envelopes with $30,000 yen to each passenger (about $300), a danish and some orange juice. And that was it. Exhausted and confused, we plodded through to customs.

The customs agent wanted to know why Ron left the box saying where we were staying blank. He said basically that we didn’t plan on being in Osaka that night and had no idea where we were at or where we would stay. Next we claimed our luggage and went to the ANA service desk which was in complete chaos. Apparently quite a few other planes had landed in Osaka for this same reason. We seemed to be the last. So we of course had far fewer choices available to us.

There were no hotels available anywhere in Osaka, not at the airport and not in the center city (again “so sorry”). And besides, the last train for the center city had already left, so why did we want to go there, they asked? We thought maybe to get a train to where we were supposed to be? But the last train was at midnight and we were almost 45 minutes cab ride to the center city anyway.

Ron got the message loud and clear that it made no difference that we were in business class or that he has Gold status in the Star Alliance program (ANA is in with United, Luftansa, Singapore, etc). The $30,000 yen was it. (”So sorry”) They would make us a reservation the next morning for a flight to Tokyo that might or might not go because of the typhoon, and at our own expense. Because this was a weather diversion, they were through with us once the plane landed in Osaka.

We tried to consider our options, I called a Hilton in the center city where we’re staying in about 10 days. All they had was a smoking room for $400 and the executive suite for $1500 — those are in US dollars not yen. By the time we decided to try for a cab to the center city, they had sold the smoking room. At this point we had no other option but to spend what was left of the night at the airport. Oh, joy.

The airline had given out blankets and sleeping bags. While we were trying to find out what our options were other people had grabbed all the chairs in the airport and had settled in for the night. Someone had vacated one chair near an elevator so we grabbed it. While I went to the washroom Ron tried to get some sleep. But he was able to due to a repeating “bing bong” that the elevators make constantly. (So that’s why the other people left!) We finally ended up under an escalator on the floor, creating a little “cave” by barricading the entrance with our luggage. In under 24 hours we had gone from living the high life at the Peninsula to being essentially homeless people living under a staircase. Thanks typhoon X and ANA!

Somehow the morning managed to wind its way to around 5AM. As the sun rose we got in line to buy tickets with 300 other people noting that the display board still said “Questionable” as to whether the flight would go due to weather. When Ron purchased the tickets he asked the agent if we shouldn’t have just gotten rebooked to Tokyo at no charge. She said back in broken English “so sorry” that we’d need to pay and then talk to “International Services”. We finally boarded the flight, again being told that it might have to turn back to Osaka. Well, we finally did land in Tokyo but without a lot of translating of the announcements in Japanese.

We found a YCAT bus from to Yokohama, arriving about 8:30 and was told by hotel staff that a room wouldn’t be ready until 2pm. Though I was a member of their frequent stay club and guaranteed early check in we still got the “so sorry, room not ready”. We finally got taken to a room at 12:45 but it was smoking, “Oh, so sorry!” And another 20 minutes before they got us non-smoking. Ron crashed in bed no doubt dreaming of people telling him “so sorry,” not to be heard from for several hours. I jumped into the tub and took a bubble bath while admiring the view and winding-down. For the moment we were once again princes.

Above is the bathtub with the portal above it. Did I mention that we were staying at the Yokohama Royal Park hotel? It is on the highest floors of the tallest building in Japan, the Landmark Tower. Our room was on the 57th floor. My ears popped every time we went up and down in the elevator.

Looking back on this experience we can laugh about it. But at the time we were exhausted and completely vexed by the circumstances that were totally beyond our control. As they say in Japan, “cho utoshi.” So irritating! This event simply gave us a low point to go up from! After all, it couldn’t get any worse. (grin)