November 20, 2024
Night of the living dread
Did I put quotes around the word "adventure" in the last journal entry? See, there I go again. What an embarrassing habit.
As punishment from the gods, we were subjected to an adventure that I'd rather not repeat again in our lifetimes.
Apparently there is something called a bomb cyclone, which, from what I've read, is a storm in which the pressure drops at least 24 millibars within 24 hours. It looks like this:
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Now where did we last leave our heroes? Ah yes, in Tapei. Something seemed to be amiss, as we were both experiencing some stomach issues. Was it fatigue? Something we ate? Not too sure. There was a moment when we thought that maybe getting on this plane wouldn't be such a great idea. But what was the alternative? Spend the night at the airport, get on tomorrow's only flight, and hope that we reconnect with our bikes and bags? Better to muscle through and get it over with. In a more COVID-conscious time, I'm sure our choice would've been different.
We spend a lot of time taxiing on the runway, putting us a half hour behind schedule. Not unusual. The flight itself is uneventful. Our stomachs settle. Things are looking good.
I had read in advance about this storm, and how it was unusual that winds would be approaching from the east rather than the north-south patterns that predominate. I figured that it might affect us in some minor way, like a sketchy landing and/or a windy ride home. Whatever happens, we'll deal with it.
As we descend towards SeaTac, we encounter turbulence. It doesn't let up. It gets worse the more we drop. The cabin sways side to side, over and over, and finally the warning bells go off: this is an unsafe approach. I don't know anything about piloting a plane, but I have enough common sense to conclude that if its body is tilted to one side when you touch down, bad things happen.
Imagine the relief I felt when the plane suddenly accelerated and ascended. This was followed by the horrible realization that we'd have to go through this all over again in a few more minutes.
Perhaps it was bias on my part, but the announcements in Mandarin sounded considerably more detailed than their English counterparts. If so, all is forgiven, as I'd rather that the captain concentrate on flying the plane than taxing his brain further by explaining everything in his second language.
Second verse, same as the first. Or maybe worse. Some of the passengers around us were starting to vomit. Thankfully everyone affected had their bags at the ready, but like yawning, it's contagious. Just knowing that others are suffering makes you feel bad, and the breathing and heaving sounds trigger further nausea. I don't need to elaborate further.
After the second aborted landing attempt, the captain announces that we don't have enough fuel to keep doing this, so he's diverting us to Vancouver. Bad news, but at this point we're all just begging to get off this roller coaster ride. We stay under 4000 meters for the short flight. As we drop in for the landing, turbulence returns, and we brace ourselves. It's rough, but not nearly as bad as the previous two descents. We land without incident. I'm soon on my phone looking up hotels, trains, and buses, as I assume we're deboarding and will be on our own to figure out how to get home.
We're instructed to stay in our seats. They're refueling the plane. Those foolish bastards. They're going to fly us back into the eye of the storm! One thing I will say, though, is that this hour or so on the tarmac was a huge relief for us passengers. It was like hitting the reset button.
Speaking of relief, I believe that every single one of us on that plane used the lavatory during this time. The doors opened and closed so many times that a strong disinfectant smell wafted into the cabin. It wasn't necessarily bad, but it was a reminder of our unusual circumstances.
Another half hour of flying back to Seatac, and another half hour of my eyes glued to the elevation reading. We descend, then we hold at about 800 meters, and I'm thinking that this is going to take a while. Finally, the altitude starts dropping again. We're hanging on to our seats, bracing for more turbulence, waiting for the cabin to start swaying to and fro, as it did the previous two attempts. This time, it was more like the landing in Vancouver -- not fun, but not something you'd write a long journal post about. There was scattered applause. It felt more like we were congratulating ourselves for enduring this mess than appreciating the pilots' skills. Honestly, I think a more seasoned captain could've landed the plane on the first attempt, but I'll always opt for caution over bravado even if the results aren't pretty.
Now it's 10:30pm, exactly four hours after our scheduled arrival. We walk the stupidly long corridor from gate to baggage claim, thinking to myself that it feels good to be on land again, that our bags will take a while to arrive, so why not relax and enjoy the journey? I simply can't convince myself of this. I just want to be in my own house, asleep (or even awake) in my own bed.
We take two carts and stand in a spot where we can see both the carousel and the oversize baggage counter. I tell myself that our bags will probably appear last, and our bikes will appear even later. This way, I'm pleasantly surprised when this isn't the case. I watch as the bags plop onto the carousel, peering over to look for our bikes from time to time. This continues until the crowd thins to a few stragglers. We finally see our bags, and as I'm loading them, I notice the immigration queue. It's long, but since there are no other international flights coming in at this hour, it'll be shorter by the time we get there.
A few minutes later, our bikes arrive. We're reminded of the different approaches to customer service between Japan and the U.S. when the employee drops each box on the floor and kicks it towards us. I wish I were making this up, but it's true.
We angrily load our bikes and move towards the immigration line. A very kind staffer helps us navigate around the queue with our clumsy cargo, where we're met by a churlish CBP power-tripper who barks, "no cutting in line!" The staffer tries to intervene, but the lady sporting ridiculous paramilitary armor and a limited vocabulary, simply repeats herself to his face, and then to ours again. Welcome to the United States!
We leave our carts where they are to join the queue. We remain the last in line until the very end. It's not just us who are tired and want to go home. It feels like closing time at the bar. We're quickly ushered through by the immigration officer. Whew.
When we reach the exit, we discover that the doors aren't wide enough for our boxes. We decide to take them off the cart and carry them through one by one. Bad decision. In our stupor, we forget that this is the "one way, no entry, no returns" door! We carry the first box through, then we stare at the big red "WRONG WAY" signs on this side of the door. A nearby staffer looks at us, and when we beg her for help, she sighs, shakes her head in disbelief, and picks up her radio. Meanwhile, it turns out that we weren't the last ones through immigration after all, as a couple of stragglers appear on the far side of the door. We motion to the staffer and she motions for us to go ahead. We wait for the stragglers, they dance around our cart, the doors open, we run through, an automated voice booms "WRONG WAY! DO NOT ENTER!", we ignore it, we ignore another staffer who is yelling at us, we grab our carts, we turn the remaining box sideways (as we should've done in the first place), we roll through the doors again, we thank the head-shaking staffer again, and we whistle nonchalantly towards the bike assembly station.
I look at my phone. It's 12:03am. Rats. I look up the light rail schedule. Last train is at 1:21am. Okay, we can do this. For some reason, the bike assembly area isn't very-well lit, but that's the least of my worries. I quickly set to work, and thanks to our sassy custom boxing lady, there's less reassembly than usual. Still, I take my time and approach it systematically. I don't want any surprises on the road, especially in this weather.
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It's 12:59 when we reach the light rail station. I look up the schedule again, which says there's a train coming at 1:13, but it says it only goes as far as Beacon Hill. To our surprise, a train appears almost right away, shining "BEACON HILL" on its LED display. We hop on it, resigned to a much shorter train ride than anticipated.
The silver lining is that the cars are almost empty. We lean our bikes against the priority seats, sit down, and wait for the end of the line. It's even quicker than expected, because the train bypasses two stations that are suffering from power outages due to the storm.
At Beacon Hill, we ride an elevator to the surface, hop on our bikes, and quickly realize that we've become very accustomed to riding on the left side of the road. Luckily, there's almost no traffic, and we can take our time figuring things out. But it's cold, it's dark, it's raining, and there's debris everywhere. Oh, and for some reason, my headlight doesn't work.
I ask my wife, whose headlight is working, to take the lead. She's not thrilled about this. We cautiously make our way down the hill while realizing that we should've put on our rain pants and shoe covers. Water has pooled up in the streets. We can't avoid all of it, and some of it is pretty deep.
The ironic part is that there is no wind. The very element that wreaked so much havoc on our flight, is now not a factor at all.
In Little Saigon, we ride past groups of homeless people huddled around makeshift fires on the ground. We gingerly steer around fentanyl-impaired zombies staggering in the street. I'm no fan of post-apocalyptic fiction. I'm even less interested in post-apocalyptic nonfiction, but we certainly have the makings of it. Get me out of here!
By the time we reach downtown, our fingers are freezing. We're committed to the gloves we have, which aren't at all waterproof, and in these conditions are probably worse than nothing at all. You'd think a couple of Seattleites would have this rain thing figured out by now, but no. Besides, we brought gear for a mild Japan autumn, where we could (and often did) wait out a typhoon or two.
Soon we're on the Westlake trail. From here, we can practically ride home blindfolded. More deep puddles and fallen branches keep things challenging, but mentally, we're in a much better place. This is the home stretch. Westlake, Burke Gilman, then a countdown of the few blocks to our destination.
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We quickly strip off our wet gloves. I soak my hands in warm water while my partner draws a bath. It's 2:30am. The clocks all read 3:30am. It doesn't really matter what time it is. We're alive, we're home, we're safe.
Today's ride: 14 km (9 miles)
Total: 3,014 km (1,872 miles)
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