When you stay up too late packing, 5am comes way too quickly. In a zombie like state I called for a taxi and took all of my stuff out to the curb to wait. Doing this I completely forgot to take out the garbage, which was one of the key thing to do before I left.
The taxi driver was a young Indian man who was very chatty. His father owns the cab and drives during the day. The son gets to drive at night which allows the taxi to make money all day. He had just finished a typical Friday night shift of picking up and dropping off drunk people. If you ever want to get an idea of what your city is really like at night, talk to a taxi driver.
At the airport a young man blatantly cut his way ahead in the security line. Nobody said anything, either due to extreme politeness or because it was 6:00am and everyone was too tired. I hope he got “randomly selected” for extra screening.
My first flight was Winnipeg to Vancouver. Unfortunately it was too cloudy to see the Rocky Mountains from the airplane. If you ever get a chance to fly over the Rockies make sure you have a window seat. It really gives you a good perspective on how massive (and pointy) the mountains are.
After landing in Vancouver, I had a 4 hour wait before my flight to Tokyo. It’s nice to have some time to relax in an airport, but 4 hours is a bit too long, especially with a shitty free wi-fi connection. There are only so many times you can look at duty free stores that sell the same products.
Finally the boarding started and I got to jam myself into a tiny window seat for the 10 hour flight to Tokyo. Shortly after takeoff we got our dinner. The choice was beef or chicken. I chose beef and got served the saddest looking gyudon that I had ever seen (as seen above). I have flown across the Pacific Ocean with Air Canada 8 times before so I didn’t have terribly high expectations, but this was the worst airplane food I can remember.
During my 10 hour flight I managed to get about 2 hours of sleep, ate two forgettable meals, and watched Argo (great), Quiz Show (good) and Identity Thief (okay). Other than the food and lack of sleep, the flight was good and landed about 20 minutes early. The adventure on the ground picks up in the next post.
Drinking in Japan 