Good morning, it's 2gyo!
I'm actually writing currently in Japan time. I finally made it and I'm too excited!
Sorry, this is going to be in English since I should sleep soon and I'm limiting myself to 10-15 minutes of typing.
After SUN and I left our home, we got to the airport a little before 8AM. We were expecting long lines on a Sunday morning, especially when currently the US goverment is shut down. Becuase of this shut down, many government agencies are impacted and workers are forloughed.
But SFO wasn't like this. Check-in took only 10 minutes-- SO FAST. The weight limit was 50 kg... and mine was 50.4 kg. Luckily, the attendant said it was fine. SUN's bag was 51.8 kg, so he took out a jacket and got it down to 50.5 kg. He mentioned to me if we got the Asian lady next to her, we probably wouldn't have to remove anything.
Next was security. Once again... maybe because I was too eager to get to the airport, there was no line. I have airport security clearance through a program so I went through in less than 2 minutes. A new record!
So we got to the gate, with 3 hours to spare.
Some might already know, but I spent that that researching more food locations on Tabelog and looking up more things to do. Foreshadowing!! Awaji Island looks so much fun. Hehehe.
Then this is where it starts to get choppy...DELAY.
We get in line for boarding at 1130, and then an annoucement comes on. Delay to 1PM departure due to crew still loading on the in-flight meals.
Okay no biggie, boarding time has just shifted by 40 minutes, and should be around 1200 to 1210.
Noon comes and goes, and another delay happens. And our gates switched. Departure time now 130PM.
Luckily it's right next to our original gate, but why...?
The crew explains it due to headwinds and cargo weight... Because the my flight departing to Osaka could depart from either plane at gates G9 and G10, the Beijing flight which was much heavier needed the Osaka plane due to their weight for this wind condition.
So we board around 1245PM, expecting a 130PM departure time. And we're on the plane! Every passenger has boarded onto the plane. But more texts come.
Delay, 2PM departure time.
Delay, 3PM departure time.
Delay, 330PM departure time.
We luckily did depart at 330PM, but knowing that, our new arrival time would be around 845PM.
We were suppose to arrive at 4:45PM, but 845PM... that was tragic.
And the car rental closes at 9PM. 15 minutes to get through immigration... absolutely impossible. And the hotel reservation would be cancelled if we didn't arrive by midnight.
But we landed at 810PM for some reason. And 2gyo and SUN ran off and got off the plane around 820PM.
We ran through the terminal, apologizing to people we needed to pass by. We knew that we had to split up once we cleared the final customs checkpoint. We got extremely lucky as a lady monitoring the line opened another set of lanes, and we got diverted into an accelerated line.
Checkpoint clear!!! Time, 847PM.
I split from SUN as he claimed our luggage and I dashed off to the car rental agency.
I dashed into Terminal 2 and arrived at 853PM, 7 minutes before the agency closed. I felt so guilty that all I could keep saying was "sumimasen" and "moshiwake arimasen". Probably didn't need to say the last one, but I felt so bad.
I got the car and SUN arrived at 908PM to give his passport. We went to the car and headed off to Takamatsu.
Since SUN is originally from Asia and drove on the left, he drove for us as I tried to contact the hotel. But I only had a data plan with no calling. And Line or WhatsApp were not registered for the hotel. Luckily we made it in time.
But that's all the drama for today. What could have been a lot of headache and trouble was miraculously dodged.
Lessons learned from today though...
Tomorrow is Kagawa Prefecture exploration! Please check out the photos tomorrow!
Good night... (35 minutes later of typing)
Here’s a photo I took on the road passing by Kobe, it’s not very good. Hahaha.
