Japan, Day 9
Aside from the weather, the trip to Japan went fairly smoothly - we did most of the things we wanted to do without running into any problems. Nothing's perfect, though, and I did finally have some minor issues on the last day of vacation.
Hiroshima is a bit far from Narita airport, where our next flights would be from - I was returning to the US, my friends were continuing on to other parts of Asia. They were both international flights, so we wanted to get to the airport about 3 hours before departure; according to the train timetables, the trip itself would be about 6 hours. According to this math, we wanted to catch an 8:15 train in order to allow for travel and buffer time.
We got to the station only to be confused that our train was not listed on the electronic departure boards. We checked a poster nearby - yep, our train was listed there. We looked at the departure boards again and noticed that other trains were listed with something in red after them, and realized that everything on the route was delayed about an hour.
This was very unusual. Trains in Japan are very punctual; during the entire vacation, we had never seen any be late. We didn't know what caused the delay at the time, but I later did some searching and it was apparently a train colliding with a tree that had fallen due to a typhoon. The typhoon might also explain why it was raining for the past few days.
Anyway, even with an hour delay (and increased uncertainty at transfers) we were hopefully OK thanks to the three hour buffer. We were thinking about the implications of this when we noticed that the departure board listed a train about to depart - it was 45 minutes after it had originally be scheduled to leave, but it was also about the same time as our original plan. The only problem was that it was a Nozomi train.
I said earlier that JR passes allow free use of JR trains, but this isn't quite true. Exceptions include Nozomi and Mizuho trains, which I think are the newest and fastest ones. Having a JR pass doesn't mean anything for these trains, you have to pay full fare. And shinkansen tickets are expensive - the trip from Hiroshima to Tokyo would be about half the cost of the JR pass.
E was courageous/impertinent/impatient enough to ask a station attendant if we could get on anyway because of the delay and because we had a flight to catch, despite only having JR passes. I'm not sure how much of it got through, but the attendant said it was OK this once. Travel tip of the day: It doesn't hurt to ask.
We got on, but were still worried about what would happen if a conductor came through and asked to see tickets. What if the attendant hadn't understood, or not had the authority to approve, or even been correct but the conductor didn't agree? Even though the Nozomi ran all the way to Tokyo, we decided to get off at our originally scheduled transfer in Shin-Osaka on the reasoning that whatever caused the delay was probably between Hiroshima and Shin-Osaka (Shin-Osaka is the end of the Sanyo shinkansen line; if the problem was after it, this leg wouldn't have been affected by delays).
We got off at Shin-Osaka and were fortunately correct; the rest of the train ride went as scheduled. One neat thing I discovered about the Narita Express line (and possibly the other shinkansens, though I hadn't known to check) was that the seating rows can be rotated to face backwards. This is convenient when rows are only 2 seats wide and you're in a group of 3.
Once at Narita airport we had a bit of time, so looked through a few shops. No manga (or at least nothing outside a few super popular titles), sadly and unsurprisingly.
We got to the gate, and my friends got on their flight fine, but mine was delayed by about an hour.
Fortunately, we did take off at the adjusted time. But I was connecting through LAX, and the delay meant I finally finished getting through customs at about the time the connection was supposed to depart. To be honest, even if the flight had been on time I'm not sure I could have made it through customs and security quickly enough. I had even booked via the airline's website, so IMHO this is just one more reason why I don't like flying United.
I did at least get rescheduled without any problem, and from there the rest of the trip home was uneventful.
Hiroshima is a bit far from Narita airport, where our next flights would be from - I was returning to the US, my friends were continuing on to other parts of Asia. They were both international flights, so we wanted to get to the airport about 3 hours before departure; according to the train timetables, the trip itself would be about 6 hours. According to this math, we wanted to catch an 8:15 train in order to allow for travel and buffer time.
We got to the station only to be confused that our train was not listed on the electronic departure boards. We checked a poster nearby - yep, our train was listed there. We looked at the departure boards again and noticed that other trains were listed with something in red after them, and realized that everything on the route was delayed about an hour.
This was very unusual. Trains in Japan are very punctual; during the entire vacation, we had never seen any be late. We didn't know what caused the delay at the time, but I later did some searching and it was apparently a train colliding with a tree that had fallen due to a typhoon. The typhoon might also explain why it was raining for the past few days.
Anyway, even with an hour delay (and increased uncertainty at transfers) we were hopefully OK thanks to the three hour buffer. We were thinking about the implications of this when we noticed that the departure board listed a train about to depart - it was 45 minutes after it had originally be scheduled to leave, but it was also about the same time as our original plan. The only problem was that it was a Nozomi train.
I said earlier that JR passes allow free use of JR trains, but this isn't quite true. Exceptions include Nozomi and Mizuho trains, which I think are the newest and fastest ones. Having a JR pass doesn't mean anything for these trains, you have to pay full fare. And shinkansen tickets are expensive - the trip from Hiroshima to Tokyo would be about half the cost of the JR pass.
E was courageous/impertinent/impatient enough to ask a station attendant if we could get on anyway because of the delay and because we had a flight to catch, despite only having JR passes. I'm not sure how much of it got through, but the attendant said it was OK this once. Travel tip of the day: It doesn't hurt to ask.
We got on, but were still worried about what would happen if a conductor came through and asked to see tickets. What if the attendant hadn't understood, or not had the authority to approve, or even been correct but the conductor didn't agree? Even though the Nozomi ran all the way to Tokyo, we decided to get off at our originally scheduled transfer in Shin-Osaka on the reasoning that whatever caused the delay was probably between Hiroshima and Shin-Osaka (Shin-Osaka is the end of the Sanyo shinkansen line; if the problem was after it, this leg wouldn't have been affected by delays).
We got off at Shin-Osaka and were fortunately correct; the rest of the train ride went as scheduled. One neat thing I discovered about the Narita Express line (and possibly the other shinkansens, though I hadn't known to check) was that the seating rows can be rotated to face backwards. This is convenient when rows are only 2 seats wide and you're in a group of 3.
Once at Narita airport we had a bit of time, so looked through a few shops. No manga (or at least nothing outside a few super popular titles), sadly and unsurprisingly.
We got to the gate, and my friends got on their flight fine, but mine was delayed by about an hour.
Fortunately, we did take off at the adjusted time. But I was connecting through LAX, and the delay meant I finally finished getting through customs at about the time the connection was supposed to depart. To be honest, even if the flight had been on time I'm not sure I could have made it through customs and security quickly enough. I had even booked via the airline's website, so IMHO this is just one more reason why I don't like flying United.
I did at least get rescheduled without any problem, and from there the rest of the trip home was uneventful.