Getting "stuck" with Tokyo

This month I am on vacation. I was pulled from my scheduled trips from the 16th to the end of the month, but had 5 days that I was obligated to the company to fly from the 5th to the 9th. My friends Gail and Sandy were flying to London on the 5th and I really wanted to fly with them, but of course no positions were open on the morning of the 4th when I was required to plot an open trip on my schedule. All that was open was a Santiago, Chile trip, where you work down, and then deadhead home. The flight was not full on the return so there was no need for an extra position. I put it in our electronic bulletin board to trade for London.

A few hours later, I get a call from a gal who had Tokyo and wanted to trade because my trip leaves at 9pm and she told me I might have better luck getting someone to trade off of London for Tokyo because it was worth more time, was a 777, etc.

So I traded with her and then called some folks who were working the late London trip to see about a trade, but no one called me back so by that evening, I was "stuck" with Tokyo.

For our domicile, this is the most senior trip on the bidsheet. Most on the crew had been flying since the mid-60's/early 70's.

The crew was nice (except for two crankies working in coach). The purser and I flew together years ago when she was on domestic. I was working with her and a galley flight attendant in First Class. Flying time over was "short" that day, at around 13 hours. We left base at 10am and arrived in Japan at about 1:30 the next afternoon. It actually is not that bad because you get a three hour break each way and can go into the bunks and sleep. It was supposed to rain the whole day, but fortunately, the rain stopped shortly after we arrived.

I decided to hit the ground running. One of the other crew members, Denise, had brought her husband Ted along, and so I went with them to the Naritasan Temple. Even though we flew to Tokyo, the actual airport is located in Narita, about an hour from Tokyo, hence we lay over in Narita. We walked the temple grounds, just missing a Buddhist ceremony at the main hall. (We arrived in time to take off our shoes, and sit down, only to have everyone else get up and leave).

Even though the temple was located in the heart of Narita, it was very tranquil and calm. There were not that many people around, so it was quiet. The only bummer was that nothing was in English so we had no idea what some of the stuff we were looking at was.

As we left the temple, saying goodbye to the Japanese kitty at the entrance, I bid adieu to Ted and Denise, who were going off to dinner and I went to do a little souvenir shopping. There was a noodle shop that my friend Bobby Bulham raved about, but I was starting to fade pretty fast and if I missed the shuttle back to the hotel, I would have to wait another hour, so I passed on the noodles and got on the 5:30 shuttle back to the hotel. Ironically, as I was waiting for the bus, I ran into an old co-worker from my days in Boston. Her name is Lani, and she and I had gone on a layover to see the Graduate, when it was a London stage show back in 1999 with Jerry Hall as the role of Mrs. Robinson. I always remembered that trip because the old lady sitting next to us asked her if I was her boyfriend (now mind you that Lani started flying in the mid-60's so she is a little older than I am) so we started calling her Mrs. Robinson after that. She was now flying out of the New York base and was there on her layover as well.

The hotel houses lots of crews, and they have a crew room for my airline with computers and VHS movies (none of the titles were all that great, though I was tempted to take Benji to my room). They also have a cafeteria in the basement level just for crew, so I went down and ordered some Pad Thai, chicken dumplings, and a beer (Asahi, Super Dry) to take up to my room.

I crashed pretty hard and slept soundly til about 6am and then went down to work out in the gym before coming up to shower and get ready for our 10am pick up.

The flying time home was much shorter due to tail winds and we made it in about 11 hours. Coming home you arrive in the morning on the same day you leave, so you technically get home before you left. You fly into the night so most people sleep. The ground crew always bows and then waves goodbye as you taxi away, so I managed to take a photo (never mind the electronic device policy). We snapped some group shots on the way home too.