Tuesday, December 21, 2010

What Day Is It? Where Am I? What International Dateline?

Arriving in Tokyo, we had a 6 ½ hours lay-over before the next flight. They immediately sent us from one terminal to the other where our flight was to leave from. God knows why when there were 6 ½ hours to waste; I did not see why there was a rush. We thought we would check out the Diners Club lounge, but it was outside of the secured area. We would have to go through Customs and Passport Control to reach it. That let that option out. Being a major airport, there was not a lot to do. There were no coffee shops, only two restaurants that happened to serve coffee and a half dozen or so shops, most were duty free. Finding vacant rows of chairs, we joined the others who sprawled across multiple seats and napped.

When it was finally time to board, they told us they needed to change our boarding passes. We thought we had hit the lottery again with an upgrade, but no such luck. Still in economy, the seats were cramped. This leg was an Air New Zealand flight. Again the service was excellent, but the seating tight making a 10 hour forty-five minute flight seem like it was much longer. This was not the end of our travels yet. Once landing in Christ Church, we had an hour to get out and wait before taking off again for Auckland.

Reaching Auckland would have been a wonderful experience had our luggage arrived, but it was nowhere to be found. We had to put in a claim with hopes it will show up tomorrow. I am wondering how many of those who went as far as Tokyo with us had to file claims. There were others on our Tokyo to Auckland flight also filing claims.

Here is a recap of the trip so far. Budapest to Munich – 2 hour flight, rush on to the next plane. Munich to Tokyo – 11 hour flight, upgraded to business class. Tokyo 6 ½ hours wait time for the next flight. Tokyo to Christ Church 10 hours 50 minutes. Wait time in Christ Church 1 hour, Reboard. Christ Church to Auckland 1 hour 50 minutes. One nice thing about Air New Zealand is that the plane had individual monitors, which you could start before the plane ever leaves the ground and continues until you reach the destination gate. Regardless, tired are we servants to traipsing the world in search of beauty, history, or nature.
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