Chapter 15 - The Journey Home Begins
We woke up ridiculously early the next morning to basically chuck on some clothes, pack up our pyjamas/toiletries etc, and stumble down to the car for the drive to the airport. Still not impressed that US Airways moved us to a 6:30am flight. On the plus side, the road was practically empty, and it was an easy (if not short) drive back to Buffalo Airport. After stressing about Border Control, we were the only car within sight, and it took all of about 30 seconds for the officer to check our passports.
We returned the hire car and found the check in desk with no problems. When we checked in, the assistant looked at our passports and exclaimed 'Oh, you're the ones travelling halfway around the world!'. Apparently they had been discussing our route back amongst themselves lol! I briefly wondered if they might be so impressed with us that they would give us free Admiral's Club access or something, but it was not to be. I forget how we filled in our time in the end - it mustn't have been that horrific.
We had a fairly good flight to Washington DC. DH and I both fell asleep once we'd taken off, and woke up in time to see a bird's eye view as we were landing. We managed to pick out a few landmarks, which was exciting! After just enough of a layover to get from one gate to another, we were on our next flight to Boston. I managed to stay awake on this one, and got great views all the way up the east coast. I managed to see NYC and Central Park, but in my sleep-deprived state I hadn't thought to keep my camera on me, so I didn't manage to get any photos. In Boston, we were finally able to get lounge access (which was great, because we did have a few hours there). It wasn't a great lounge, but it was certainly better than having to fend for ourselves.
Finally we were onto the next exciting part of the trip - our business class flight with Japan Airlines! JAL haven't gotten around to doing 'pods' yet, but we still enjoyed their business class offerings. I remember their entertainment selection being quite good, and you could choose to have about a 10 course Japanese degustation menu. I wasn't sure that I could stomach all the delicacies on offer there, so I just stuck with the boring western menu.
We managed to get a bit of sleep before arriving in Tokyo and making our way to the JAL lounge there. That lounge is AMAZING! Definitely the best I've seen. When we win lotto, I'll be aiming to do all my trips to the US in business class via Tokyo! There were heaps of different zones, including a whole separate soundproof room with a play area for kids, work zones, a bar/casual dining area, a room full of massage chairs, lounging areas, and a full restaurant upstairs where you were seated and waited on. Just over 2 hours was only enough to get a taste of what was on offer!
Making our way to the gate for our next flight, I spied this amusing sign. Having experienced the toilets for humans available in the terminal, it made me wonder whether there were any fancy bells and whistles for the service dogs lol!
Our next aircraft was a bit of a step down (no lie flat seats or anything like that), but it was only a short flight so it wasn't a problem. We did have a bit of a problem when we arrived in South Korea, trying to find our way out of the airport. We managed to find the train station, but there didn't seem to be anywhere to buy tickets. There were plenty of machines, but they all took cash only. We eventually found a person at a window, but he only accepted cash too. So DH set off back to the main part of the airport (the train station was quite out of the way) to find an ATM so we could buy our train tickets. We got there eventually, and just had a short ride to our hotel.
I loved all the neon signs around on the short walk from the station to the hotel. Lugging everything around, it wasn't a great time to get my camera out and start snapping away, so I thought I'd take photos when we got to the hotel. DH wanted to go straight up to the room, and I was pretty tired by that time (close to midnight), so I just conceded and went up too. In hindsight, I should have made an effort to get some photos, because that was the only night we had there. I did try to get one out the window, but there was flyscreen in the way and I couldn't get much of a street scape from there anyway.
Exhausted after a long travel day, and knowing that we had to be up again at 6am, we were both happy to call it a night.
