Friday, June 6, 2014

Crazy Weekend in Korea: Friday

It's Friday, the big day! We're going to Korea! Anna has a few things left to do before we leave, but I convince her to come to work with me and spend the morning with the kids at the park near the factory.

This is my first mistake of the day.

You might be able to see the brontosaurus on the left, and the fish on the right.

It's a strange park. Tired and worn in some respects, but well maintained in others. The kids have fun (I am told) and when I get off of work three hours later we all pile in the car and head back into Nagoya. It's an hour drive both ways, but there's nothing to do but make the trip. Anna is nervous because she's forgotten to write down some travel details, such as how to get to our hotel. We need to leave our car at the apartment, because it's expensive to park at the airport.

Instead of driving, we'll take the train from Nagoya Station. It's a big station, with multiple rail and subway lines converging. One of my Japanese co-workers tells me that even locals get turned around. Anna asks me to check which train we need to take. I find out it's the Meitetsu line. I'm aware there are several kinds of train, but I figure if we get on a Meitetsu train, we'll end up at the airport eventually.

This is my second mistake.

It turns out that there are different kinds of Meitetsu trains that go from Nagoya station to the airport (four kinds, actually). But there are also Meitetsu trains that go other places.
Meitetsu can take you many other places.

I, however, am blissfully unaware of this fact, and we set off walking to the station.
We didn't get many pictures.

We got on the wrong train of course.

I should have known as soon as I noticed the announcements. When we arrived a few months ago, I distinctly recall the train PA system announcing the station names in both Japanese and English (the station names are the same, of course, but the contextual words are different). The train we got on just had Japanese. I wasn't worried though, as I figured we had simply gotten on a different variation of train with slightly older equipment or something.
Pictured: Me, blissfully unaware.
Teddy, understandably concerned.
Here's a picture from the train.

So, an hour later, we find ourselves at the end of the line. It's a sleepy little station in the countryside. There is no airport in sight. I talk to the station attendant, and he helpfully informs us that this is, in fact, nowhere near the airport. I honestly don't know where we ended up. Gamagori maybe? It was somewhere south, in the right direction, but off to the east someplace. In any case, we will have to take the train all the way back to Nagoya Station to get on the right line.

We should have done that. It would have taken just as long as what we chose, and cost a hundredth of the price.

I show the station attendant our flight time, and he tells us our only chance is to take a cab. It will be expensive, but we might make it. I say fine, and we all pile in. I show the paper to the driver, and he starts making phone calls. Doesn't he know where the airport is?
Here's a train with Pikachu on it.

Here's what's printed from the reservation e-mail for our departure point:
Nagoya (NGO - Komaki)
Confusing? I didn't think so. But I was wrong there too. As we found out later, NGO is the airport code for the Central Japan International Airport (where our airplane was actually departing from). This airport is South of Nagoya station, and maybe a half-hour drive west from where we were. But Komaki is the name of a place too... a place North of Nagoya station, and which also happens to contain an airfield. Faced with confused foreigners in a hurry who were waving papers around, the taxi driver chose to head for Komaki. We don't know the difference, so we sit patiently, and wait.

So, about an hour later Anna fortunately notices that we're driving right by Nagoya station. At this point, it becomes clear to us that we have no clue what we are doing, where we are going, or where our flight is even departing from. We flag the driver, have him drop us off at our apartment, pay the $200 taxi fare, and start over.

In this case, "starting over" meant calling up Kayak, NeatTravel, and Asiana airlines and being basically told (over the course of what feels like hours of being put on hold) that no one knows why both NGO and Komaki were on the ticket confirmation, we were going to miss the last flight of the day, we can't move the tickets, and we can't get our money back. We buy new tickets for tomorrow (through Orbitz this time), buy some dinner from the convenience store (since we had intentionally left nothing perishable at home), have a relaxing evening, and go to bed, hoping to be well-rested for our departure tomorrow.

Nothing says "hard work" like calling your boss...
At two in the morning.
That's what would have happened, except that around the time we got home, there was a big problem with the machine at work. So, while Anna was dealing with buying new tickets, writing down all the details on how to get to the hotel, and taking care of the kids, I was playing switchboard operator and trying to coordinate support for an ongoing multi-million-dollar disaster. By the time I went to bed, it was late, the problems at work were far from over, and we were all ready to put this "vacation" behind us one way or another.

But tomorrow would prove to be challenging as well.

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