Swine Flu

you step on a plane in atlanta, or i do at least

youre in washington dc. you wake up and youre sitting on a plane to tokyo. its a 13 hour flight. the stewardesses wear cute little scarves and hats. they look way too cute and way too japanese for what youre really used to.

it might be the most cramped youve ever been. everyone around you is sipping wine slowly or reading a newspaper in some incomprehensible language. these languages arent japanese. some are going to china, some to vietnam and some to korea.

it wouldnt have been too badly cramped if the trip had been about four hours, like a domestic flight or something, but 13 hours is overkill for the seat i was in. i could totally understand now how i ended up with such a cheap ticket.

i was bamboozled.

I met a really cool guy from tokyo on the plane and we talked it up for a good long while. sometimes in english, sometimes in japanese. he told me my japanese was good by using the words "nihongo ga ojyouzu desu ne" which means something like "your japanese is bombin."

but i know the truth. when japanese folks say this to you, they really mean something like "way to try" or "A for effort."

the best part of the plane trip was the giant drinking of alcohol ceremony followed by an immediate naptime. the stewardesses walked around with trays loaded with all different types of beer, wine and maybe even a little warm sake to appease the older crowd. since i am a non-drinker, i sat twiddling my thumbs as everyone around me drank and drank and drank some more. there was singing and loud conversations. the guy in the row in front of me kept shouting for about ten minutes about how happy he was.

after the alcohol had been consumed, they dimmed the cabin lights, the stewardesses sat down in their seats which of course faced the opposite of all the passengers in the plane, and everyone took a nap.

this was a great naptime. i guess it is just part of standard policy on the plane to have naptime following the meal and consumption of large amounts of alcohol. after all the boisterous cacophony, all was silent. we all went to sleep.

but anyway, were on the flight for 13 hours, then they come on the PA after we land and tell us that there are doctors that will be entering the plane and we have to wait for them to show up and do whatever.

so they show up in about 30 minutes.

these guys come in and theyre dressed up like astronauts. they look like the government guys at the end of ET or something. way too cool to be true. then they start to examine everyone with a futuristic video camera that i reckon was supposed to pick up swine flue vibes or something.

i passed, but one around me was not so lucky.

they came on the PA and made another announcement that someone close to me had traces of what could POSSIBLY, just MAYBE be something like the swine flu. So then they sent in the big guns. Doctors dressed in blue like this sucker in this picture right here.

i took lots of pictures of this, which apparently started a trend. everyone around me started taking pictures until eventually they had to tell everyone to stop.

they gave us cute masks to wear that made us all look like sub zero from mortal kombat.

Then they came on and made an even better announcement. Everyone sitting in a 2 meter area of this poor infected kid had to stay on the plane longer for more tests. of course i was one of the hundreds on the plane with this honor.

So I stayed and stayed...and then i stayed a little more.

They finally let me outta there about 3 hours after the plane landed. i go through the motions, jump through the hoops.

and im in japan.

i meet my frind ben at the baggage claim, pick up my bag that was sitting there for 2 and a half hours. i go out to the train station, meet my same friend i had met on the plane, who in turn followed me and took care of me as i went through customs and all, and we were on a train for shinjuku, the heart of tokyo.