Cowing Around: A Long Way Home

It’s been two years since the last time I was home, so the next 1.5 weeks is going to be extra precious for me. Since I keep moving further and further away from home, I know this is going to be a looooong way home. Plus, it was comforting to know that the snow storm has caused most of the airports in the north east to shut down, and I happened to have to transfer flight at Dulles airport.

I was pretty skeptical about the flight because I know that the airline will probably fly us into DC even if the planes aren’t leaving. Well, I was very lucky that the flight was delayed by only two hours because a lot of people have been waiting at the airport for days. Only two hours? That what I thought.

So why two hours? The plane delayed to depart from the gate by one hour, and spent an hour sitting at the gate while the ground crew use some kind of big water jet spray to de-ice the plane. It was like getting hosed down by anti-freeze using a special vehicle that probably only gets used once in a few years. Any way, I was also very glad for one more thing. Upgrade! I was very lucky that my co-worker, who apparently has a ton of miles, was able to upgrade my flight to Business Class. Finally, in my thousands of miles across the skys do I get to get the taste of flying Business Class. Now I am taken seriously!

How does it feel to fly Business Class? Well first when you arrive at the airport, you don’t have to stand in the ridiculously long and slow lines to check in. Then you don’t have to stand in the ridiculously long and slow line to get thought the security. Then you get to spend extra time at the VIP lounge where you have free snacks and drinks, watch TV or surf the internet, while you would have been sitting at the gate for hours staring at each other. Then you board the plane first without, again, the ridiculously long and slow lines. Once onboard, they serve you beverages which includes beer and booze. You get your own big(relatively) LCD screen with in-flight entertainment ready for your usage, even when the plane isn’t in the air yet. You also get your fold-flat chairs that you can sleep in. Oh my god does this make a huge difference!
So while fiddling around with all the buttons, the captain was on the PA, said something about San Francisco… wait, wasn’t I supposed to be flying to Tokyo????? WUT?! The plane doesn’t have enough fuel to fly to Tokyo? WUT? We are going to SF to get more fuel and food? This doesn’t make any sense at all! We were delayed for two hours. Couldn’t they do all this while we were still on the ground? And why the detour to SF when they could do it in DC? Oh well, I felt like a kidnapped lamb stuck on a truck to the slaughter house… maybe not as bad as it sounded, but it was frustrating.

So by the time we got to Tokyo, it was 10pm, a full seven hours delay. So I did a quick count and realized that I was on that plane for a good 19 hours!!! Imagine if I was in economy class. I would definitely have exploded in my seat. It’s a great wonder what fold-flat seats and in-flight entertainment can do for you. Even though the overall experience sucked bad, I still made it…. Actually not quite. The flight from Tokyo to Taipei was cancelled because there were too many of us stuck on this flight, so we had to stay in Tokyo over night to catch the morning flight at 7am. By the time I got home in Taipei, I don’t even know how long I spent travelling. 36 hours? I didn’t even care anymore. I was just glad that I am finally home.