Geek and The Art Girl: Siberia, Rush Hour, and Earthquakes. Oh My!

Longest thing you could ever imagine, times two

On the O'Hare Train

Everything went smooth yesterday, wait, two days ago. It's tough adjusting to living in the future. Minor hiccup to start the trip. We assumed an international flight would depart from the International terminal; not so much. Not a problem, though, we were at the airport with plenty of time to spare, and just hopped on the O'Hare shuttle train over to the correct terminal. If you learn nothing else from this post, let it be drink lots of water on the plane. It was like being in a food dehydrator, and we're still recovering.

For the first time since 9/11 I was not 'randomly' selected! Well, actually, my luggage was, but at lease I wasn't. Security was surprisingly quick. No long lines, no inappropriate bodily contact with TSA, etc. I guess now that they have that fancy gamma ray (or whatever it is) device, clothes and cavity checks are old-school.

Waiting at Gate B17

Our flight arrived at the gate on time, and there were a lot of people waiting to board it. Most of us didn't really know what we were doing, and took comfort in being in good company. I suspect the seasoned international travelers just kept to themselves, or didn't speak English.

Linux Posting-Barf on Plane

We flew on a Boeing 777; a seriously big plane with two massive engines. Unfortunately the configuration of our gate prevented me from getting a picture of our plane's exterior, so check out this group of pictures of various similar planes. Naturally, once we were all packed into the plane, that's when we received a 30 minute delay before push-back, then we spent another 10 minutes after being pushed back just hanging out on top of all the taxi-ways (large plane is large). In all, nothing too serious, we finally got moving and headed straight to 28R for departure. After push-back, however, I noticed something unexpected. The in-flight, individual entertainment system is Linux based. Pretty cool, though, there was a surprising amount of errors in the posting verbosity...

PiP

Following our westerly takeoff, the captain soon brought us around to the North, because after all, to go to the far-east, you must go North (it makes sense if you use a piece of string on a globe, rather than looking at a flat map). This path enabled a good view of many familiar things to bid farewell to. Such amazing sights as Palwaukee Airport (now Chicago Executive), the building on 94 that I work in, and even Milwaukee. You know what they say, though, flying an airplane is 30 minutes of excitement on the head and tail of the flight, wrapped around several hours of boring nothingness.

Here are some departure pictures for you to enjoy!

Our flight path

Shortly after departure was lunch, and the movie marathon started. Originally I had put "Ender's Game" on my tablet to read during the flight, but both The Art Girl and I found reading during this flight to be a daunting task for some reason. For the most part the flight was long, boring, and not very interesting. We did meet Lisa, the mother of a 32 year old F15 fighter pilot stationed in Okinawa. She seemed happy to have us to talk to from time to time. There was so much food on this flight it was insane. It seemed like every 30 minutes they came by with something to drink, and served two full meals, plus two snacks (apparently a small turkey sandwich is snack worthy nowadays).

My in-flight viewing list:

Feeling tired, and weary

"Jobs" - Not as bad as everyone proclaimed. Overly compressed in some portions of the timeline, drawn out in others. We all know the story, though, so it's not like you are left wondering anything.
"The Lone Ranger" - Cute, funny, not Johnny Depp's best, but still entertaining.
"Grown Ups 2" - Stupid humor, great for passing a lot of time when your brain is fairly mushy already. I guess there were morals to the story, but it was more for the cheap gags.
"After Earth" - By the time I watched this movie I was so far gone who knows if I'd rate it well. It seemed fairly predictable, and a horrible role for the generally charismatic Will Smith, but the effects were good.
"Through the Wormhole, with Morgan Freeman" - Always good viewing.

The views over Canada and later Sibera were amazing, and throughout the whole flight, the sun never really went away. When we were our furthest North it was fairly dark, almost a perpetual dusk.

Alaskan Tundra at Twilight

More Alaskan Tundra

Early Siberian Morning

Sunrise over the Siberian Mountains

After, seemingly, forever we flew over the northern island of Japan near Asahikawa. The occasional mountain and coastline were visible, and it was a great view. The pictures hardly do it justice.

Southern Coast of the Northern large island

A mountain in the distance near Asahikawa, Japan

Apparently the FAA is, to my surprise, the progressive flight controlling agency in the world. We can keep our tablets or smart phones on from the gate onward now, but during descent, approach and landing in Japan, not so much. So not a lot of aerial pictures on our way down, but as it turns out, Narita airport is a LOT further from Tokyo than we realized anyway. Once on the ground it was an interesting experience. We were so tired (neither of us really got any sleep on the plane), and just trying to figure out where to go that we forgot about taking any pictures in the airport.

Narita airport was a lot like O'Hare. I guess there is only so much you could do to make an airport that different, right? The line for immigration was long, but moved very quickly; about 30 minutes from initial queuing to being done and at baggage claim. Very minimal questioning, and a quick reminder in the way Americans are versus Japanese. The level of quiet respect and politeness in Japan, versus the self-centered, loud, boisterous public interactions in America are starkly contrasted. At O'Hare you expect someone in a uniform to yell at you if you're not where you should be, act indifferent to your motivations, and be generally uncaring. Japanese immigration officers, on the other hand, are calm, quiet, and discrete with their instructions. I saw some of this personal interaction respect during my time at Mitsubishi, but being here shows it as a whole new world.

Once we collected our baggage, the customs station was a short walk away, and also very efficiently run. We had little of interest to them, including the excessive amounts of technology I brought with me. From there it was a short walk to meet our driver for the night, Green Tomato. I'm pretty sure we committed numerous social faux-pas (henceforth known as SFP because I expect to write it a lot) in meeting up with him, but we were basically zombies by this point (it was 5:00 PM Japan time, or 3:00 AM to us, and for me, I had only gotten three hours of sleep, starting 25 hours prior). Green Tomato (didn't get his actual name, SFP #2) was standing with many other people holding a sign with The Art Girl's name on it. I tried to indicate, politely, that we were who he was looking for, but he didn't seem to get it, so I ended up point at him (SFP #1, it technically happened before the other one).

Green Tomato, I don't think, spoke much English. We eventually got to the word "voucher" between us and him, and that got everything going. From there we got in his car, essentially a Japanese taxi, only a bit nicer, which was impeccably clean, and trimmed out with lace. I attempted to ask if I was saying "do you speak English" in Japanese correctly, but I don't think I did, and I'm pretty sure he didn't understand what I meant, so we left it at that and settled in for a 2+ hour drive in rush hour traffic. The repetitive speed up and slow down made it very difficult to stay awake, but we managed and got a few pictures along the way.

By the time we made it to the hotel it was 7:30 PM Japan time (4:30 AM Central), approximately 20 hours after we left, and there was really nothing left in us. Green Tomato was very gracious and nice, the hotel staff were also very nice and polite, plus they all, so far, speak excellent English. It almost feels odd that they go out of their way to learn and speak such good English, when our own society does a very minimal effort at being or even wanting to be multi-lingual. The woman who checked us in was so cheerful and happy and did a great job making us feel welcome and not just a couple of weary travelers ready to sack out on any flat surface.

Once in the room, a person stopped by, very promptly, to setup the in-room wifi, and I took the opportunity to clear up a couple things. For example, I read that tipping in Japan is an SFP, so I asked about it. At first he didn't even know what I was talking about, but then got the idea and confirmed that was correct, you should not tip in Japan. I guess the feeling is, I am already being paid to do this, why would you pay me again? Perhaps they don't pay people as little as we do in tipping situations. My follow-up was trying again on if I am saying "Do you speak English?" correctly, and I was close, but not quite right. For future reference, it is "Eigo hanasemasu ka", pronounced (egg-oh hah-nah-say-mahs kah).

So all was done and quiet. Our technician left, we took a few pictures and were about ready to settle in for some sleep when all the sudden, EARTHQUAKE! Fortunately not a very bad one, and at first, almost not noticeable. I heard a bump and thought it was some sort of equipment in the building, then the bump came again, only more of a rumble, and everything started shaking. The whole building began to sway and rock its body in time. Read more about last night's earthquake here. Reminds me of Blue's Brothers... "How often does the earth quake? So often you won't even notice."

Anyway, we didn't have enough left in us to do much more but pass out. Here are some pictures in and from our room to close out a very, very long, and eventful day: