Little Impish Lift

I coulda sworn I’d bought a flight to Haneda Airport.  I am now in Narita.  I’ll be flying home from here too.  How did this happen?  I had the flight I wanted all picked out as I recall.  Then Vayama would not take my card.  Called the bank, they conformed there are no issues with the card.  Tried again, no dice.  Tried the Kayak web site.  Same thing.  Oh dear. Since Kayak is an aggregator I tried one more time with Orbitz abut they suggested I do it from scratch on the site.  When I did, I must have missed that I’d caught the info for a different flight.  Simply confirming the times and not the airport had led to this oversight. I’ll have a long ride in to town now and will need to do it all over again next Friday. 

Doesn’t matter.  I’m in Japan.  There is always a little impish lift when you land in Japan.  The beautiful archipelago where courtesy and rigidity have engendered a society sui generis to the world.  Surely there are many, many things that can only be experienced in Japan.  Thoughts turn to food, for one.  But you wouldn’t know it flying on ANA this morning.  The beef option lunch fair is nothing but potatoes and fatty bits.  So many Chinese people on this flight over to Tokyo today, though the lady to my right and the one to my left, siting her in my middle seat perch are certainly Japanese.

Riding in to Tokyo now on the Narita Express.  This was certainly the only way in and out of town for most of the years I visited this country.  Visually, it is nice to reconnect with the Japanese ex-burbs.  The rice plants are all shining bright yellow. It reminds me of what rice looked like when I visited Laos one summer and the field of rice below me from a mountain top we’d climbed were radiant.  Does this mean the rice is ripe?  Is it time for a harvest?  I’m imagining so, because there are some other fields that appear to have been cut alongside them. 

I was warned that it would be very hot here.  Beijing has just begun to cool off.  In the morning these days, I need a sweater when I head to the gym in Beijing.  Not so here, warned my son. “Tokyo is like ninety-five degrees.”  Instead it is overcast and looks as though it might pour rain at any moment.  Ahh, poor Houston.  I flew in and out of the at city last year.  I don’t really know it beyond that airport vicinity, but I hope they get back on their feet soon.  I can remember last summer coming home to find our basement flooded.  A bunch of things were ruined.  It was a drag.  But that is nothing like having your entire house submerged. 

Wednesday, 8/30/17