(no subject)
Apr. 3rd, 2006 09:06 amI had a post put together in Narita, but it seems, in my haste to not miss the plane (which was delayed) I didn't actually save it. Oh well.
Narita isn't a bad airport. The little shops spaced out around the terminals are decent. The prices aren't exhorbitant, and the people are friendly. The smallest of politnesses were very well recieved (I know more polite noises in Japanese, and am more certain of them, which may have helped. Knowing how to say excuse me proved very useful on the plane itself, which had a, largely, Japanese flight crew. The notable exception was the head steward, who was from Paducah, Kentucky, and sang paens of praise to the food; which was decent but certainly not the "five star rating" he claimed for it).
At Incheon I was frustrated. Somewhere along the way it was recorded that I had a paper ticket. This caused trouble when I was heading to Korea, but it seemed to be related to my missing the first flight. In Korea it was a trifle less stressful.
But, having acquired souveniers for people (![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rednikki you need to drop me a line; with an offline means of getting in touch with you) I decided to rearrange my bags to make it possible to take two onto the plane with me. I could get everything into the new Camelbak rucksack, but that would make it too large to carry on, and the camera bag never goes underneath. United's website said an extra bag was $25. I didn't think this unreasonable, esp. as it wasn't more than 8.lbs (between the camera bag; weighted with laptop, and the rucksack, with books, and goodies, I was hauling 70lbs through the airport. I had an SF guy give me grief once when I said I hated carrying that much weight [the most I have had to hump was 82 lbs. above body weight, it was a lot. No, I didn't make the packing list], he said he carried 85 lbs. on a regular basis. I asked him how much he weighed. He said something like 220, and I told him I wouldn't complain as much either, if I was only shouldering 1/3 of my wieght, instead of 3/4s. He shut up).
I also figured it would probably be waived, both because of the size, and my being on orders. As I waited for the ticket snafu to get straightened out I heard the line one over having bag after bag, all larger than my daypack, get the fee waived. The guy tried to tell me I was going to have to check the Camelbak. A bit of dickering an I kiboshed that (telling him I knew it would fit under my seat because I travel with it so much (a slight fib, I travel with two bags all the time, and the camera bag will go under the seat, when it doesn't have a computer and an independent hard-drive in it).
While he tags the bag, and gets the rest of my ticketing done someone comes up and pages me to the counter. It seems Security want's to look into my duffle bag. I half expected this, since my pro-mask looked like a can of campstove fuel when I left. It's packed in the top, just in case.
He then tells me I have to pay for the extra bag, and it means going to the next line. The latter part of that bothers me more than the $25, because there is a guy having problems. He was in line before I spent 15 minutes getting my ticket squared away.
Twenty minutes later I am still waiting behind him when another agent comes up with someone else who had an extra bag. She waves us up to the counter. Which is when I get annoyed. United wants to charge me $123, and the bag is already gone. Body lnanguage, firm questions and some back and forth between the agents and I am told I will be waived, "just this once." I said thank you and left for security.
It seems it wasn't my pro-mask, but rather the Gerber Mutli-tool, and my Buck 110. They wanted to examine them before I could take them out of the country, stowed away in the hold. Sigh. I don't know what to do about my trip to Scotland, as England now prohibits people from carrying (and perhaps owning) either of them, because the blades lock open.
I get a couple of individual servings of Haagen Daaz. A Belgian Chocolate (so-so. It was too sweet, and the chocolate bits were too small; they felt like coarse grit, and didn't melt on the tongue, so they added little to the flavor), and Green Tea. The Green Tea was great. Almost powdery, and not too sweet.
The Camelbak didn't quite fit beneath the seat. I put my blanket over my knees so it wouldn't show.
Four hours in Narita. I bought a couple of yukata, which are lightweight cotton robes, like a kimono, looked at some lovely laquerware, goggled at the $120 dollar bottles of sake (I am sure there are sakes worth that much. I am also sure I have not enough experience to appreciate the subtleties), bought a couple of bottles of lesser sake; just because I've never seen those brands here. Both have pull-tops, one of which is built like a jelly-jar. The othe has a more fluted neck.
For lunch I bought some kobe nagata sobesomething (I forget the latter part of the name). It was a noodle and rice, with vegetables, and small bits of beef, in a dry curry. Very tasty.
And it reminded me of something. I've had japanese food I didn't like, but I've never had any that was crappy. I've had chinese which was swill, american which was inedible, french which was lousy, english which lived up to its reputation, etc., but never have I had japanse food which was poorly made.
I didn't sleep much on the flight across the Pacific. Maybe three hours. That there was an infant (Misaa) in the row didn't help, but I was restive. I have a respiratory infection, which didn't help. There was some bizarre movie on (I didn't listen to it) "Aerofina" I think. Stupid SF, with lots of creative camera work to evoke mood. It was, I think, an overthrow the dystopia story. A virus wiped out 95 percent of the human race, a doctor figured out a cure, and used it to set his family up as tyrant. Now people are pissed off. Lots of bad fighting, weird hallucinatory conversations (the heroine is walking down a tree-lined path, a guy kisses her. Me, I figure he's passed her a note, I was right, but it worked by releasing RNA, or something, in her stomach, and showing her a glowing room, like a medieaval university lecture hall, with a red-headed woman in the gallery talking to her, and to other people. There were several returns to this).
Watching movies without the sound gives the lie to the myth we are becoming, "a visual culture." Audio, maybe, but not visual. Absent a lot of reading (and movie watching, with the soundtrack) I'd not have been able to piece together any of the story.
We came into SF from the north. The Golden Gate Bridge always looks magnificent from above, and seaward.
I had a six hour layover in SFO. If I'd found the location of the USO before I crossed security (where they have signs telling one that shoe removal is optional, and then insist everyone remove them) I'd have gone there and taken a nap, but it was in terminal one, and I in terminal three.
While I waited, and talked some photography with a girl who was just back from visiting her mother in Kaiserslautern (her mother is a contractor for the Army at Landstuhl, working in child development. One of the perks is the daughter gets to fly out once a year on the gov't dime) over spring break. She's going to spend next year (after this term is over) visiting her brother in Daegu, which is just down the pike from Waegwan, where I just was, I saw a hawk hunting over the greenswards between the runways, had a bite to eat at the Anchor Steam restaurant (decent fish and chips, so-so tartar sauce [it needed more acid] and the bock was lacking in sugar or malt, it was more on the lines of american porter) and wished I was home.
Caught the plane, came home, took a shower, handed out some prezzies, went to bed.
Woke up; with an aching head, and the usual other symptoms of this thing (it's recurrent, bacterial; and misery inducing, but not, usually, life-threatening). About 1100 I fell asleep. Maia came home sometime around 1500 from meeting, and I told her, so she says, to go away. I awoke at 1900. Slept for a few hours, awoke, lay in bed for two hours, rose, read some more, and half-dozed to the present.
The Sergeant Major from National Guard Bureau who is co-ordinating the exchange to Great Britain left me a message on the 27th (phone, no e-mail... WTF? He knew I was in Korea). I called him. He says the conference was great and Calif. sent someone to colelct info for me. Said someone is supposed to get in touch. So all looks pretty good.
Oh, and I got 2/2 on my last DLPT, which makes several things easier.
Narita isn't a bad airport. The little shops spaced out around the terminals are decent. The prices aren't exhorbitant, and the people are friendly. The smallest of politnesses were very well recieved (I know more polite noises in Japanese, and am more certain of them, which may have helped. Knowing how to say excuse me proved very useful on the plane itself, which had a, largely, Japanese flight crew. The notable exception was the head steward, who was from Paducah, Kentucky, and sang paens of praise to the food; which was decent but certainly not the "five star rating" he claimed for it).
At Incheon I was frustrated. Somewhere along the way it was recorded that I had a paper ticket. This caused trouble when I was heading to Korea, but it seemed to be related to my missing the first flight. In Korea it was a trifle less stressful.
But, having acquired souveniers for people (
rednikki you need to drop me a line; with an offline means of getting in touch with you) I decided to rearrange my bags to make it possible to take two onto the plane with me. I could get everything into the new Camelbak rucksack, but that would make it too large to carry on, and the camera bag never goes underneath. United's website said an extra bag was $25. I didn't think this unreasonable, esp. as it wasn't more than 8.lbs (between the camera bag; weighted with laptop, and the rucksack, with books, and goodies, I was hauling 70lbs through the airport. I had an SF guy give me grief once when I said I hated carrying that much weight [the most I have had to hump was 82 lbs. above body weight, it was a lot. No, I didn't make the packing list], he said he carried 85 lbs. on a regular basis. I asked him how much he weighed. He said something like 220, and I told him I wouldn't complain as much either, if I was only shouldering 1/3 of my wieght, instead of 3/4s. He shut up).I also figured it would probably be waived, both because of the size, and my being on orders. As I waited for the ticket snafu to get straightened out I heard the line one over having bag after bag, all larger than my daypack, get the fee waived. The guy tried to tell me I was going to have to check the Camelbak. A bit of dickering an I kiboshed that (telling him I knew it would fit under my seat because I travel with it so much (a slight fib, I travel with two bags all the time, and the camera bag will go under the seat, when it doesn't have a computer and an independent hard-drive in it).
While he tags the bag, and gets the rest of my ticketing done someone comes up and pages me to the counter. It seems Security want's to look into my duffle bag. I half expected this, since my pro-mask looked like a can of campstove fuel when I left. It's packed in the top, just in case.
He then tells me I have to pay for the extra bag, and it means going to the next line. The latter part of that bothers me more than the $25, because there is a guy having problems. He was in line before I spent 15 minutes getting my ticket squared away.
Twenty minutes later I am still waiting behind him when another agent comes up with someone else who had an extra bag. She waves us up to the counter. Which is when I get annoyed. United wants to charge me $123, and the bag is already gone. Body lnanguage, firm questions and some back and forth between the agents and I am told I will be waived, "just this once." I said thank you and left for security.
It seems it wasn't my pro-mask, but rather the Gerber Mutli-tool, and my Buck 110. They wanted to examine them before I could take them out of the country, stowed away in the hold. Sigh. I don't know what to do about my trip to Scotland, as England now prohibits people from carrying (and perhaps owning) either of them, because the blades lock open.
I get a couple of individual servings of Haagen Daaz. A Belgian Chocolate (so-so. It was too sweet, and the chocolate bits were too small; they felt like coarse grit, and didn't melt on the tongue, so they added little to the flavor), and Green Tea. The Green Tea was great. Almost powdery, and not too sweet.
The Camelbak didn't quite fit beneath the seat. I put my blanket over my knees so it wouldn't show.
Four hours in Narita. I bought a couple of yukata, which are lightweight cotton robes, like a kimono, looked at some lovely laquerware, goggled at the $120 dollar bottles of sake (I am sure there are sakes worth that much. I am also sure I have not enough experience to appreciate the subtleties), bought a couple of bottles of lesser sake; just because I've never seen those brands here. Both have pull-tops, one of which is built like a jelly-jar. The othe has a more fluted neck.
For lunch I bought some kobe nagata sobesomething (I forget the latter part of the name). It was a noodle and rice, with vegetables, and small bits of beef, in a dry curry. Very tasty.
And it reminded me of something. I've had japanese food I didn't like, but I've never had any that was crappy. I've had chinese which was swill, american which was inedible, french which was lousy, english which lived up to its reputation, etc., but never have I had japanse food which was poorly made.
I didn't sleep much on the flight across the Pacific. Maybe three hours. That there was an infant (Misaa) in the row didn't help, but I was restive. I have a respiratory infection, which didn't help. There was some bizarre movie on (I didn't listen to it) "Aerofina" I think. Stupid SF, with lots of creative camera work to evoke mood. It was, I think, an overthrow the dystopia story. A virus wiped out 95 percent of the human race, a doctor figured out a cure, and used it to set his family up as tyrant. Now people are pissed off. Lots of bad fighting, weird hallucinatory conversations (the heroine is walking down a tree-lined path, a guy kisses her. Me, I figure he's passed her a note, I was right, but it worked by releasing RNA, or something, in her stomach, and showing her a glowing room, like a medieaval university lecture hall, with a red-headed woman in the gallery talking to her, and to other people. There were several returns to this).
Watching movies without the sound gives the lie to the myth we are becoming, "a visual culture." Audio, maybe, but not visual. Absent a lot of reading (and movie watching, with the soundtrack) I'd not have been able to piece together any of the story.
We came into SF from the north. The Golden Gate Bridge always looks magnificent from above, and seaward.
I had a six hour layover in SFO. If I'd found the location of the USO before I crossed security (where they have signs telling one that shoe removal is optional, and then insist everyone remove them) I'd have gone there and taken a nap, but it was in terminal one, and I in terminal three.
While I waited, and talked some photography with a girl who was just back from visiting her mother in Kaiserslautern (her mother is a contractor for the Army at Landstuhl, working in child development. One of the perks is the daughter gets to fly out once a year on the gov't dime) over spring break. She's going to spend next year (after this term is over) visiting her brother in Daegu, which is just down the pike from Waegwan, where I just was, I saw a hawk hunting over the greenswards between the runways, had a bite to eat at the Anchor Steam restaurant (decent fish and chips, so-so tartar sauce [it needed more acid] and the bock was lacking in sugar or malt, it was more on the lines of american porter) and wished I was home.
Caught the plane, came home, took a shower, handed out some prezzies, went to bed.
Woke up; with an aching head, and the usual other symptoms of this thing (it's recurrent, bacterial; and misery inducing, but not, usually, life-threatening). About 1100 I fell asleep. Maia came home sometime around 1500 from meeting, and I told her, so she says, to go away. I awoke at 1900. Slept for a few hours, awoke, lay in bed for two hours, rose, read some more, and half-dozed to the present.
The Sergeant Major from National Guard Bureau who is co-ordinating the exchange to Great Britain left me a message on the 27th (phone, no e-mail... WTF? He knew I was in Korea). I called him. He says the conference was great and Calif. sent someone to colelct info for me. Said someone is supposed to get in touch. So all looks pretty good.
Oh, and I got 2/2 on my last DLPT, which makes several things easier.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
How popular are you?