After months of planning and dreaming of going to Japan, the day is finally here. Today, we fly to Japan. It was a good decision to leave our island a day early and stay in Richmond. Not having to be up at the crack of dawn to take the ferry on the day of a long flight, plus the increasing unreliability of ferries due to unexpected cancellations made the choice for us. ANA (All Nippon Airlines) offer bike transport free if it fits within your luggage allowance of 2 bags. As we are travelling with 2 panniers each, we decided to get the pair wrapped together at the airport, which gave us a free plane ride for our trikes. We found the ANA staff gracious and welcoming to deal with. To our surprise, before opening their counter to check us in, the complete crew came out, stood in a line and bowed in unison, welcoming the passengers . However it was a jolt back to reality when we then had to deal with the airport employee in the oversized baggage area. He took no joy in his job or in dealing with customers. No bows of welcome from this guy. Once we got through this and were repacking the trikes, we were disheartened to realize that we would have to go through this all over again in Tokyo before carrying on with our connecting flight to Osaka.
Our new bike boxes and shiny pannier bundles are ready to go.
The night before, Barry had used extra strong Gorilla tape to secure the boxes. He had quite a difficult time opening the boxes…in fact he is now missing of his fingernails.
Our flight from Vancouver to Tokyo had a lot of turbulence and it arrived over an hour late. As Tokyo was our first entry into Japan we had to go through immigration, wait for our luggage and then take our luggage and bike boxes and take a shuttle bus to the domestic terminal for our connecting flight to Osaka. Unfortunately we missed our connecting flight and also the next flight which was the last of the day.
Keith AdamsYou look remarkably refreshed and in good spirits for a harried traveler fresh from a long overnight flight and who has missed their connection. I doubt I'd look anywhere near so chipper. Kudos to you! Reply to this comment 1 year ago
At immigration, we were greeted by chaos and a gymnasium sized room full of travellers like us who were desperate to make connecting flights. The lines of travellers were endless and it made no difference that we had completed our requirements for a fast check in. We finally gave up trying to make agents understand and settled in for a long wait.
After we picked up our baggage and bike boxes we wandered around trying to find someone who could help us. The staff were overwhelmed by requests like ours. A big thank you to the ANA employee pictured above, who stayed with us until she had resolved our problems. We will fly midday tomorrow to Osaka and she secured a room for us at the Villa Fontaine Grand, a deluxe hotel connected to Terminal 3.
Sylvia used to post on that other site but years ago went her own way. She’s been all over the world with her trike. This article is a few years old and written before she got e-assist, but she’s still trucking. Reply to this comment 1 year ago
