A Change of Pace

 

Rewind 365 days. The past 30 hours have been so much different. In 2019, I was in Tokyo during a Typhoon. On the last day of a trip organised by FUSO Japan, coming down from their proving grounds, I experienced the shutting down of Tokyo due to mother nature doing her thing. 

On 25 October 2019 I got up early, wanting to go for a jog, my first sports activity in an action packed week. It was sleeting rain, so I abandoned that thought and worked instead. Only later did I find out that the cozy hotel has a hot spring and I could have done that instead of emails. The bus trip took 3 times longer back to Tokyo and there was a lot of howling winds and more rain. Something was on.

After depositing the others at Haneda, it was my turn to be sent to Narita. Getting there was quiet the adventure. We stopped on the side of the highway. Highways were closed and some train lines stopped operating. My guide told me that we gonna try to make our way to the airport by means of using three different trains.

The first one was packed. Packed as shown in the documentaries about Japan. And then some. To get to the next one we first stood 40 minutes in the rain, then decided to go in the opposite direction for a few stations as the trains arriving were overflowing.

Turns out that we managed to get onto the last train to the airport. Arriving there we learned that the flight I was on had been delayed. Not cancelled. Having sat down after check in as the last ones they allowed to do so, the beer tasted really good. The flight was supposed to leave at 5pm. Finally left after midnight.

The good news was: people did not make it to the airport and the flight was empty and I had a whole row to myself while bumping out of Tokyo. But I was late into Kuala Lumpur. The plan was to arrive on 25th, sleep and fly on to Singapore on 26th. I arrived in Kuala Lumpur with the missus already at the other airport and me having to rush from one to the other. As a precaution, I re-booked my flight to one an hour later. Turns out, had I not sat down to do so, I could have been on the original flight. Bad news: it was the first flight I have ever missed in 36 years of flying. 

Today, 26 October 2020, I just saunter back and forth between fridge (beer) and sofa (aktschen Fulms).