September 28, 2012-
So…are you ready for a week-long trek around Japan??? Pack your bags! Well, how about go pack your backpack? Because we're traveling light this time around. We're carrying one backpack each and one very small suitcase.
Hey! There's our driver! It's time to make our way to the Tianjin airport. Thank goodness we're flying out of Tianjin this time as the driving time is only around 30 minutes – as compared to 2.5 hours to the Beijing airport.
We're all checked in! I had no idea there was a separate part of the airport for international flights. Huh. We've flown in and out of this airport several times now….I wonder why I never knew about the international section? Mark got us passes to go into the Sky Lounge- for whatever that's worth. We actually have less than thirty minutes until our flight boards.
I don't believe it! I don't believe it! Our flight is actually on time!!! How is this possible??? It's a Korean Airline flight to Incheon. An airline steward just came and got us- they're boarding us early. Wow! The Korean airline staff are super friendly and curteous. :-)
You don't mind if we do a little of this while waiting for our next flight, do you?
Let's go find a play area for the girls to run around in. It'll keep them (and us!) from going stir-crazy while we wait for our flight to Nagoya.
Time flies….it's time to board the next flight!
Yippeee!!! We made it to Nagoya! That was a very fast flight! Now we've got a few things to take care of before we find our way to the hotel tonight. It is getting late and we are tired but we first need to find our small suitcase, exchange our US dollars for Japanese yen (normally we don't exchange cash but we know that we have to pay cash for our accomodations and it's very expensive in Japan…we wouldn't be able to pull enough cash from the ATM every day to pay for our lodging) and find a mobile phone to rent. Yes, we're going to rent a mobile phone at the airport. We heard that our phones won't work in Japan and it just seems like a wise thing to have while traveling.
We've found the mobile phone rental location at the airport. Here it is! Ummm…..here's a new thing for us- this seemingly elderly gentleman helping us check out the rental phone speaks wonderful English! He even was able to -very nearly- pronounce our name correctly. This is a first!!! We've not come across an older Asian person who is fluent in English. We were definitely not expecting that! What a pleasant surprise.
Now that we've got our phone it's time to go find a train to take us to our end destination tonight…Nagoya Marriott. Thank goodness the hotel is right next to Nagoya (train) Station. I'm not sure I have it in me to go searching for some elusive hotel.
So, is this the train that we're supposed to be on???? Ah, a very nice rail worker told us that THIS is the train we're supposed to be on. Off we go!!!!
Oh.My.Goodness!!! We just realized that we left our small suitcase back in the station (when we were trying to figure out what train to get on). OOOPS!!!!! Now what?????? –Quick Thinking– it's a darn good thing we rented that phone and that I brought copies of all our lodging accomodations with us….Mark just called the Marriott (at my request). WHEW! They found our suitcase and they're sending it via the next train to the station. WOW!!! Did we get lucky or what??????? The lady who helped us at the Marriott deserves an award for saving our day (or night)!!!
It's now midnight and we're ready to drop. I'm so glad checking in went smoothly and we got our suitcase back. I'm sure you're just as tired as we are. Better go get some sleep….we've got some big plans for tomorrow!!!!