The Long Awaited Day

The 21st of July. We, the sleepyheads, specially my dear husband, miraculously woke up before our alarm. Our long awaited  summer vacation will start today. We’ll be flying to his homeland, the so-called land of the free, the USA. We’ll be out for a while in the land of the rising sun, Japan.

We got up early to prepare for a looong flight. The flight would be 19 hours and 30 minutes, well, shorter than the flight we had last year, and so far, the shortest we got. We didn’t want to do multiple and long lay-overs, never again.

Our flight have two stops. One at Narita, Tokyo and one at Los Angeles, California. Our flight to Narita was not until 1:35 in the afternoon but we decided to get to the airport early to avoid the cramming and stress we usually get in traveling. By the way, we live in Fukuoka, southwestern part of Japan. About an hour and a half to Tokyo.

Everything was fine going to Narita. The flight was on time and the teller didn’t ask me unnecessary questions regarding my documents like the last time we flew to the US. It was smooth until we landed in Narita.

The bad news

We looked for our connecting flight to Los Angeles upon landing in Narita. We only had like two hours lay-over, just enough time to check-in and go through immigration. But to our dismay, our flight was cancelled due to maintenance.
We were directed to the Customer Assistance Counter where a lady in her late 40’s or early 50’s told us after making several clicks on her computer and phone calls to who knows who that the best that she could find is a flight later that evening which will take us to Honolulu where there is a 12-hour lay-over and then from there a connecting flight to Phoenix and finally to Salt Lake. Upon hearing that, my usually friendly and jolly husband raised his voice to disagreement. He insisted to get a better offer since we, in the first place,  chose this flight because we did not want to go through the hassle of multiple and long lay-over flights. The lady, then told us to wait again, this time it was longer. I don’t like waiting at all. It was exhausting.

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​Finally, after almost an hour, the lady offered us a better deal. We could stay in Tokyo for a night with free hotel accommodation and get on the flight the next day, or if not, accept the first offer (the long lay-over in Honolulu). Although, I kind of wanted to go to Honolulu, too, since I’ve never been there before, but I just hate long travels and the thought of getting on and off several planes made me sick already. Finally, the lady made all the necessary arrangements for our changed flight and free hotel accommodation.

We were almost settled but then we realized we don’t have a change of clothing with us since our luggage has already been checked in and we’re not going to get until we arrive in the US.

But, thanks to UNIQLO we could get reasonably unexpensive decent-enough clothing to survive until the next day.

The complementary hotel accommodation 

The shuttle bus  came on time and took us to the hotel.

While inside the bus we saw a poster of a restaurant offering buffet. We got excited for a moment there but we quickly dismissed the idea of us getting into a nice hotel, the more of having a buffet dinner and breakfast. For sure we’re going to get a less than average accommodation and more or less a piece of bread or cereal and a cup of drink for our meals.

After about 20 minutes, we arrived at our hotel and we were happy to see that it’s more than what we expected.

It’s quite big, the lobby is nice, and receptionists are friendly and quick.

We were even more happy when we opened our room and saw that we got three beds, one for each of us.

The best part of our cancelled flight is the buffet dinner and breakfast included in our hotel accommodation.  The restaurant was spacious and well-lighted and clean. the waiters and waitresses were pleasant and attentive. The food was great. There was steak, meat dishes, salads, fruits, desserts, ice cream, drink bar, and the best part was the winter crabs for dinner buffet. We ate crabs that night like we never had before. And the breakfast was equally fulfilling.

We left that hotel and headed to the airport the next day with the new perspective about cancelled flights. Not all cancelled flights are bad after all. Sometimes it’s just another opportunity to experience a new place.