Back home

I returned home on Monday around noon, after almost two full days of travel. I’m experiencing the effects of jetlag, as you might see from the time on this post – 1 a.m.

The trip was mostly uneventful. I say mostly because as soon as the bus from Kichijoji to Narita began to move I began to feel nauseated and ill. I listened to a reading of The Age of American Unreason and shut my eyes to keep from getting really sick.

At Narita I wandered around the shopping floor of Terminal 2 for the next four hours, purchased overpriced OTC medications to treat the nausea, and ate some udon before heading down to passport control and into the departure area.

My Alaskan body never adjusted to the temps in Japan. The bus was too warm, the terminal was too warm, and the plane was too warm.

I never did find a comfortable position on the flight. I didn’t sleep much either. The medication I took got me drowsy and I must have dozed from takeoff until the meal service started. After that I was awake for the rest of the flight.

Arrival into San Francisco was uneventful. It was a warm day there as well. I rechecked my bag in at the recheck area right outside Customs. Then I went to the Alaska Air counter to get my boarding pass. It turns out I should have taken my checked bag all the way out and rechecked it there. What happened was that at the Narita counter, the agent wasn’t sure the baggage would make it all the way to Petersburg because of the date change and flight changes. I didn’t feel like taking the time to try to explain that any bag destined for Petersburg really had only one route and one airline, and if it got there it would find me. So it was checked through to Seattle. That meant I had to pick up the bag at Seattle and recheck it there.

I had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant and had beef noodle soup. From there I went to my uncle’s townhouse in the middle of the city where I showered and napped for a little while. His wife made me some onigiri (rice balls) for the plane. Back to the airport, through security, and off to Seattle.

It was just after 10 p.m. when I arrived in Seattle. I picked up my bag and went to the counter to see when I could check it back in – 3:30 a.m. when the counters reopened for the next day. I found an AC outlet and paid for a WiFi connection ($7.99/24 hours) to keep me entertained for the next five hours. Between Wall Street Journal Online and Facebook, the time went by fairly rapidly. Quite a few other people were also sitting/sleeping about the area waiting for the counters to open.

A bit after 3:30 a.m. the counters opened and I was able to check my bag in (and didn’t have to pay the bag check fee because it was originally from an overseas flight). I proceeded to go through security and straight to Dilettante, a chocolate and coffee shop/stand, where I got myself a Xtra Dark 72% mocha. This is a Seattle-only shop with a few locations in the city. Normally I don’t care much for mochas because they are way too sweet. But this is the one place where I look forward to it because I can choose the kind of chocolate that gets added to the coffee. The last time through Seattle I had just the hot chocolate using the Xtra Dark 72%, and I could have that again as well. It was sad to see, a couple hours later when more travelers came in, that a very long line formed at Starbucks while only a few people milled about Dilettante. Is the power of marketing that influential…?

I finally boarded my final flight to Petersburg. The scenery into Ketchikan was amazing. For once it wasn’t overcast or raining. Wrangell was overcast and starting to rain. From there it was just a short hop to Petersburg. I think the pilot tried to keep under the cloud cover and flew right above the Narrows. I don’t think I’ve been on a jet flight where the tops of the trees were so plainly visible. I started to feel a bit ill again. Then we landed and I was home.

I slept, slept some more, and slept at odd times. And now I’m wide awake at 1:30 a.m.