At 5 PM Friday local time, Wife and I finally arrived at our first official stop of the trip, Kagoshima, Japan. This morning we were up at 4 AM of so to catch a 7:15 flight to Kagoshima via a new discount airline Jetstar. I had done a lot of research and reading of reviews about this airline's baggage policy as that can always be a tricky thing with weight limits and limits on carry-on. Most of what I read was they were fairly lenient though there was one review of a woman carrying a lot camera equipment who ran into a really anal set of agents.
We, because we are traveling with a slew of camera stuff in a nice, new, compact camera roll-on bag, we of course run into the anal representative as well. Absolutely insisted would could not bring our two back packs and camera on board. We tried repacking things but could not hit the required weight limits. In the end we decided to bail on the flight as we could use our Japan Railways Pass.
Of course the train from Narita takes about 10 hours with two train changes. And there was the slight problem of our rail passes not being official until Saturday (since we didn't think we were going to need them today as we were flying). Fortunately, a nice person at Japan Rail changed the starting date (even though you are not supposed to do that) for us.
It was a long time to be in a train after all the flying of the previous day. But we got there and we have a great room with a great view and we had a very nice dinner to get us started. Too freaking tired to pictures tonight.
Tomorrow we are having a great day of sightseeing...On an all day train ride!!!! Because we didn't think we'd be spending the whole day today in a train.
6 comments:
Oh no! Choked on my popcorn.
OMG! So crazy. I can't imagine the rage that prompted you to take the 10hr train rather than pay whatever amt it was to get the extra suitcase on the flight.
Wow! Sounds exhausting! Glad you got there safely & like your room!
You will be expert train travelers now!!!
Alexis, it wasn't a question of money. There was no amount of money that could be paid for them to break the weight allowance for carry-on. We would have been forced to put computers or cameras in our checked luggage to get to the weight required and that was unacceptable.
What a mess. This is the kind of adventure that is a lot more funny when you are looking back on it years later.
I have enough travel anxiety that something like this would reduce me to tears. How frustrating!
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