Earlier this year I bought some plane tickets to visit a friend who lives in Japan. Well, being honest, there were other reasons for me to also take a shot and embark in such an ambitious journey. I’m coming off from a terrible three months or “babysitting” a legacy piece of software, and even as I write this I think “babysitting” is not the appropriate term, as you don’t “babysit” a sick person in hospice care.

Initially I was going to spend my two weeks PTO home, after suffering some serious repercussions from my upset work/life balance, and coming to terms with white beard hairs and a lot of weight gain coupled with muscle loss. But I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t purchase those cheap tickets to Japan after three years of monitoring a bunch of flight itinerary search engines in order to escape from reality and recharge batteries.

Another reason for booking that flight was not just for Japan, but also for doing layover in the US and visiting some family relatives after more than a decade since our last reunion. It really teaches you a lot about loved ones not being eternal.

New York: 11 Years Later

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What can I say. I’ve never been a fan of New York, but the fact I have family there, was more than enough for me to consider putting aside my animosity towards this place, and doing a selfless act. Brooklyn had a lot of closed roads presumably due to labour day celebrations, but I’m not entirely sure. The place felt far more somber now and I credit this to the fact my visits a decade ago were fairly short, and I was always travelling there with other relatives, never alone. As always new yorkers are quite rude, at least my expectations there were fully met.

Unlike other trips however, this time I did not stay in Manhattan, in a cozy hotel themed à la 1950s (as I fondly remember the Salisbury Hotel, now demolished and replaced by God knows what, I’ll find out about it in a future post); Exploring Central Park and visiting Times Square for the neophyte NYC experience, along with the museum, the statue of liberty and climbing the Empire State (I was never able to do that!!)

I stayed for roughly 6 hours at my grandma’s house, and that was entirely worth the whole trips price tag, and much more than that. She’s been living in Queens for quite a long time, and the place looks just as I remember it. It’s weird because this was the first time I did not take the dreaded subway to Queens, but from the distance I heard that monotone announcement voice from the metro station and it brought back a lot of phantoms from the memory palace, as we used to get lost and relied on physical maps to reach our final destinations (Google Maps and Waze weren’t that good back then, and we didn’t use prepaid cell phone plans)

Boeing Incompetence?

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I took a 4 hour nap and then went back to Newark and waited for boarding to my final destination. The initial wait was fine, the plane arrived on time, and the moment was perfect for me to shine (lovely rhyme); until the bad news echoed in the plane corridors, putting my annoyance in the pilot’s seat. Apparently our aircraft had some technical issues related to a plane carpet that was damaged before take off. How that came unnoticed during initial inspections after the plane arrived on time at Newark is beyond comprehensible for me. If this was a new aircraft (it wasn’t, I believe) then why did the plane carpets suddenly face issues? Was it due to a poor implementation, a poor design choice or merely a coincidence.. I guess I’ll never know, but since the latest news bringing to light some of Boeing’s quality issues, I’m more biased to this incident being more of a material issue and Boeing trying to cut corners with their equipment..

Some Don’ts and Do’s

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• DO remain patient throughout this whole trip
• DO NOT pay for those stupid cabs. Just order Ride app instead, or you’re going to get ripped off
• DO provide all documentation needed to the TSA officers
• DO NOT pack your whole bag with a lot of snack bags; You’re not going to be able to pack much and it will be extremely annoying how your bagpack remains bloated, especially while on the plane
• DO bring some snacks to your friends from abroad
• DO NOT eat a lot before your next flight
• DO take some anti nausea pills 30 minutes before your flight
• DO NOT throw up in the only restroom on the plane. I’m speaking from experience here.
• DO kill some time watching movies.
• DO NOT bring a lot of cash to your flights, its dangerous
• DO be assertive and remain alert during your whole trip
• DO NOT pick the aisle if you’re easily annoyed at some travellers going in-n-out constantly from their seats because they’re drunk or simply have a worm crawling up their butts, forcing them to stand up and move around the plane, as if they were taking dance lessons.
• DO take care of yourself

I’m still 7 hours away from Tokyo, more updates will come very soon, I promise.=)