December 19, 2009

Tokyo, we're finally back..

..sort of. After finding out our flight to Osaka was 2 hours late due to having to wait for passengers from all around Europe, we were merely annoyed. Sure, it was a pain in the rear kinda annoyance, but still, somewhat bearable.

Until we actually arrived to Osaka just to find out our connecting flight to Haneda airport in Tokyo wasn't waiting for us unlike we had done back in Helsinki-Vantaa waiting patiently for the few late passengers. We ran our hearts out, queued patiently with the 200 other people in the disembarkation line, then ran some more. After reaching the luggage dropout point we were told we're about 10 minutes late, and that the plane is just taking off.

So, what to do now? We waited for someone from Finnair to come and tell us what to do next. Apparently, the next flight from Osaka to Haneda wouldn't be until 5-6 hours, so instead we were offered a flight from Itami airport to Haneda, departing in less than 2 hours. The thing is, you need to take a limousine bus from the Osaka airport to get to Itami, and the trip is no less than 75 minutes, assuming you get lucky with the traffic. The bus ticket was a whooping 1900 yen, and we had to purchase them ourselves, though we received forms to fill so we could get that 1900 yen back from Finnair in 1-2 months. The staff on the other hand was extremely kind, as one might expect in Japan. The lady that was guiding us to the correct bus wouldn't stop apologizing and bowing, and even when we were on the bus she happened to notice us from the window and took a bow that seemed it would last until we got safely to Itami.

90 hectic minutes later we were at the Itami airport, running for our lives once again. The situation got almost hazardous yet again, when we received differing advice about where we should leave our luggage. Having run between 2 floors 3 times, one might start to get agitated and distressed. Naturally of course, TampioTravels is an example of patience and calmness, and would never cave in to such vices. This time we made it just in the nick of time and were on our way to Haneda on a Japan Airlines flight, and seemigly as the only foreigners. The flight itself felt like a 1-lap Formula 1 race, and it seemed to be over before we could even realize it. The scheduled flight time was 1 hour, but I'm rather sure we made it a lot faster.

We took a train from Haneda to Asakusa, and ended up in Yokohama. Naturally this was intended, as we had always wanted to stop by at Yokohama with 15 kg of luggage on our backs. I mean, it's not like TampioTravels wouldn't get on the wrong train by accident, would we?

Now, 5 hours later than intended, we're finally back in Tokyo, preparing to do what we do best.

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