Epic Flight

3/30/2012

Hey guys. So after a long 33 hours after take-off from SFO [a good 16 hours longer than expected], I’ve finally landed in Taiwan. Now, I was a little peeved at first at how long it took it get to where I wanted to be, but in the end it was an interesting detour; I can now say that a night was spent in Japan [without losing a considerable amount of money]. So, let’s recap what happened in these 33 hours.

Place taxied out of the gate and got in line to take off; then a fleet of asshole private jets decided they didn’t need to wait in line, putting us from position 3 to something like 9. Then after that we were told we lost our spot (you don’t say??) and had to make another loop around the runway for take-off. That set us back about one hour [which is better than I expected since last time I flew direct we were late by 2 hours]. After about 3 hours in, the captain told us that there was a window issue in the cockpit [not properly sealed = loud high pitch noise] and that it was a danger psychologically to the crew for a long 9-hour flight. We took a detour to land and switch planes (and pilots) in Seattle. I couldn’t really complain about this since I rather them land with a sound mind in Seattle than suffer through a chaotic breakdown as they decide to see if they can barrel-roll a 767 onto a runway.

So this unintentional setback meant missing my connecting flight in Japan. But Delta, trying to keep their customers’ happy, rebooked my flight for the next day and paid for my room in a nearby hotel along with dinner and breakfast. Sadly, the meals were both set and I couldn’t be a dick and order the most expensive things on a menu (not even beer was included, bummer). After dinner it was about 3-4 hours of sleep, breakfast, and back on a bus to the airport; breakfast was really good, a buffet of Japanese cuisine was a welcome relief to the American food stuffed down my gullet during my flight. I’ll post up a picture of the buffet with a link some later since I’m trying to only do this one photo a post thing. In the end, I’m a little glad for the longer layover; gave me time to adjust my jetlag beforehand (Taiwan and Japan only share a 1 hour difference), walk around the airport, and buy some interesting things.

So here’s a cute little picture of what I bought; good chocolate, small beer, and some social cigs. Cheers and hope this isn’t an omen to the rest of the trip.