April 1st

Ok so my trip started a little bumpy. I was supposed to leave Wednesday for Nagoya Japan. Why you may ask, well because my parents were transferred there last year for work with Boeing.

This trip had been planned by my Dad and I with out my Mom knowing:) It was supposed to work that I would arrive on Thursday evening in time to surprise my Mom at their favorite restaurant, Japone and Italian place owned by a young Japanese man names Koje.

Well like I said it started a little OK a lot bumpy. I arrived at the airport expecting a 9:05 departure to Vancouver B.C. on an Air Canada flight, much to my dismay the departure did not happen until 11:40 of course no announcement was made to alert us. This meant that I missed my connecting flight on JAL at 12:45! Now Air Canada does not have a hub in Seattle so all the correspondence is done through United Airlines, and thy do not know shit about Air Canada. First I was told that if I missed my flight connection that is was my problem and that I would have to see a JAL rep about it when I got to Canada. WTF this is there doing to undo. So I finally went to a semi competent lady that had to try and find an Air Canada #?? Yup she had no # for Air Canada, Now at this point I am thinking that this Air Canada is a joke and am a little nervous to be flying. Finally I am told that when I arrive that I should go to an Air Canada desk and that they will put me on the 1:30 flight that they offer to Tokyo.

I arrive in Vancouver at 1:05!!! I follow the signs to customs and find a 2.5 hour wait!!! As I approach the customer service people I find myself a little overwhelmed and very upset so when asked where I was connecting to I started CRYING!!! in the Airport in front of hundreds of people yes folks this is what I did and I did not do it to try and get ahead it was a natural reaction out of frustration and nerves! This lady looking quite shocked that a grown woman is crying her eyes out in front of her says don't worry we will get you taken care of. The next minute I am being escorted to the front of the customs line, OK so I did feel a little bad but that went away pretty quickly. Once through customs I went to go get my bag that ap parently had been at the airport for some time before me? The baggage agent was very nice in trying to figure out what need to be done with my bag since I had no ideas how I was getting to Japan. I was then escorted up to the ticketing area by a lovely man named Milos, who gave me a quarter and his cell phone # to call him when I figured out my flight situation.

Now by this time I am so done with travel that a 10.5 hour flight to Tokyo and another 1.5 to Nagoya seems like torture, but the great thing is that was slowly finding out that Air Canada was not the problem in Seattle it was United that POORLY represents them, and every one I got a chance to tell about it I did.

I arrived at the ticketing window and was helped again by a lovely lady Mariee, she was able to get me all the information I needed and soon was feeling that I might just make it to Japan after all. She was able to get my JAL tickets changed for a departure out of San Francisco the next day. Air Canada gave me a meal voucher so that I could eat while waiting for my flight it San Francisco. Once in San Francisco they put me up at the Wesin at the Air Port and gave me meal credit for breakfast and lunch. Although this was not what I had planned Air Canada did make things right and I was very grateful to all the helpful people I met along the way. I made it to San Francisco and was very excited to have a hot shower and a place to rest my head that was not the Air Port.