4:25 in the morning, 20 days before we leave home to live in Japan for three months. I can no longer sleep, pondering a comment my husband made before leaving for the lab yesterday.
“ I hope we can check our bags through to Tokyo from Hartford.”
Boy, me, too. Two adults, three children, 4 computers, cameras, a violin, two and a half seasons of clothes and household goods to get us started in the bare room in Hamamatsu where we will live. And luggage without wheels. Yes, that is a pressing question in the early morning.
We haven’t made things easy on ourselves. My husband’s tickets had to be purchased separately for our Japanese host to be able to reimburse him. We are flying on three different airlines, which theoretically, at least, code share. We aren’t returning to the same airport from which we depart. Oh, and to get to the airport on the day we leave, we will need to leave our house at 3:30 AM. When we finally touch down in Tokyo a day later, we will have to get all five of us, and all our luggage, from one of the world’s most crowded cities to the provincial town where we will live. A potential perfect storm of travel nightmare in and of itself, but now we may have to reclaim and move all that baggage between terminals with no walking connection during a short layover.
What were we thinking?
The decision to move to Japan for a term was pretty easy. Someone else would pay for most of it, no other job prospects were lined up, the children were doing well in school and a good age to travel. And travel is what drew us together in the first place. John and I have always been up for a road trip, or field work in an exotic locale or even just pleasant day dreams about the next big trip. We’ve taken 6000 mile car trips with children, taken them to foreign countries, and each of us has taken the kids on solo epic journeys, too. We are flexible enough to know that what you plan and what you experience are different beasts. It is the experience that counts.
This trip, however, is a bigger undertaking. Japan is a larger challenge, because it is culturally very different, and the language barrier practically insurmountable. We will really be gaijin, foreigners, with no hope of blending in. I’m not sure I CAN be prepared to be stared at for 3 months, and John, who gets fussed at the ‘traffic jams’ in our two stoplight town is in for a bigger shock.
And so, my larger worries will have to wait, while I deal with smaller ones, like will we have to collect our baggage and transport it from one terminal to another, re-check in, and run the security gauntlet a second time at the nation’s largest airport. Did we leave enough time in the connection to do that? Will we ever see our luggage again? Ok, not going to think about that last one.
A few phone calls to the airlines involved provide no resolution or comfort; it is apparently up to the discretion of the personnel at check-in in Hartford whether or not they will thru check the baggage. Joy. John’s only comment- “Pack light”.
Well, better put this worry away as un-knowable, and move on to the next one. Like- can I really clean out my house for the renter in time! Note to self: buy more Tums.
