FRIDAY NIGHT, December 3, 2010

On our first visit to Japan three years ago, we got a tip from a Frommer’s travel guide for the Monterey hotel chain in Japan. I liked the hotels we booked in the Ginza district and in Kyoto so much (in terms of comfort, location, service and value for money) that the Monterey website was the first place I looked for a room on this run. Monterey had a special on their property next to the Omori rail station in the Tokyo borough of Ota, $99 per night plus taxes (which brought the total tariff to $117 per night). As I thought this was a bargain, I grabbed it. I was not disappointed. I arrived at the front desk shortly after 1930 on Friday night, handed my passport to a friendly and efficient clerk, and almost immediately he handed me the key to my room on the sixth floor. While the room was tiny by American standards, it had everything I needed—comfortable double bed with nice linens and buckwheat pillows which really worked for me (I am going shopping for them); shower and “wash-o-let” (I didn’t try out the bidet feature); a desk and chair with an excellent internet access situation (both Ethernet and wireless); and a flat panel TV with 12 channels, all in Japanese. Also, the cabinet supporting the TV contained a small refrigerator. I walked down Ikegami-dori to the Ozeki supermarket and picked up some bottled water, Coke Zero and beers which chilled very nicely back at the room. I took a cold remedy and was out like a light by 2030.

SATURDAY, December 4, 2010

I only had a few objectives on this quick trip to Tokyo: (1) find a toy store where I could buy a neat Christmas present for my grandson that could not be obtained in the USA; (2) attend a soccer match in Yokohama in which a former star for Glasgow Celtic would be playing for the home team; (3) find a church for Sunday Mass; and (4) attend the horse races at Nakayama Racecourse near Funabashi. Oh, and ride the trains in the Kanto region as much as possible.

The exchange rate was slightly more than ¥80 for US$1.00.

The great things about the automated ticket machines at JR stations are that (1) by pressing on a green box at the upper right of the screen all the fare options read out in English; and (2) the machines take both banknotes and coins (SNCF, take notice). I put a ¥1000 note in the slot, and my ¥730 “Tokunai Pass” was dispensed along with my change. The “Tokunai Pass” is good for one day of unlimited rides on JR trains within the 23 administrative districts that make up Tokyo. The pass works in the fare gates at all the stations (similar in concept to the farecards used on the Metro here in the Washington area and the BART out in the Bay Area). Even on Saturdays, train service is frequent and the trains have lots of riders. I hop on a northbound Keihin-Tohoku line train and set out for adventure. When I get to Tokyo station I change on to the Chuo line which runs east and west—one of these things where you get on a train and see where it goes. I ride westbound on a “Rapid” train which skips many local stations for maybe 45 minutes, and, on this clear, beautiful morning, Mount Fuji comes into view. By this time I have probably left Tokyo and my pass may not be any good out here and, wanting to avoid a Japanese jail, I get off at the next station and head back on the next train, reaching Shinjuku (the busiest rail station in metropolitan Tokyo), and transfer to the Yamanote line for a two stop trip to Harajuku, which turned out to be an extremely charming and attractive commercial district (for example, most of the major athletic footwear companies operated big stores there). I had gotten a tip on a toy store called “Kiddyland”, located on the neighborhood’s main street, Otomesando, and walked down to look for it. As it turned out, their seven story building was closed for renovation, but a store employee standing at the front door was handing out flyers directing customers to a temporary store location two blocks away on a side street. One just cannot get over how polite, friendly and helpful every member of a Japanese store’s staff are. Also, unlike in the USA where “Merry Christmas” can be politically incorrect, virtually every store I saw in Japan had “Merry Christmas” signage, and I saw a lot of decorated Christmas trees (this, considering that there are approximately 509,000 Catholics and maybe a total of 1 million Christians in a nation of over 127 million).

Anyhow, I got a great toy for a little boy—a model N700 Shinkansen train set (I saw the real thing running on the Tokaido Shinkansen line (Tokyo-Osaka)) , together with a box of track and accessories, and spent less than ¥7,000 yen. I really wanted to take it out of the packages and play with it myself. When he gets older, and if he likes trains, I’ll shell out for HO gauge.

As it turned out, and had I known about this beforehand I would have bought a JR railpass before leaving the USA, Saturday 4 December was the first day of revenue service for the extension of the Tohoku shinkansen to Aomori, the capital of the northernmost prefecture on Honshu (it had previously terminated at Hachinohe). The JR had an ad campaign called “My First Aomori” (everything else was in Japanese except for those words), including a very neat video showing three generations of railway workers saluting the new train as it pulled into the station. Apparently, the 100 km long extension involves some serious tunnels. Construction has begun on linking Aomori to the rail tunnel between Honshu and Hokkaido, and the goal is to have the shinkansen running to Hokkaido by 2015—it is hoped that, someday, Tokyo to Sapporo will take 4 hours or less by rail.

Dropping the packages back at the hotel, I set out for Yokohama, less than 20 minutes south by rail. Since my Tokunai pass only was good for one stop south of Omori, I bought point to point tickets from the machine, which were cheap (¥210). The Yokohama station has an elaborate shopping mall, including a CIAL department store, and I went down to the food hall on the basement level. I found a counter where they were selling tempura hot and fresh from the wok (or whatever deep fryer they were using). It was a little pricey, but I bought three gigantic tempura prawns for ¥900, and washed them down with a pint of “Suntory Premium Malt’s”. The prawns were incredible, even without soy sauce.

Thus nourished, I got back on the train, taking the Yokohama line a few miles to Kozukue station, the nearest stop to Nissan Stadium, the home of the Yokohama F-Marinos of the “J League” first division. Nissan is headquartered in Yokohama, and not only did they sponsor the stadium (which had been constructed for the FIFA World Cup finals in 2002), they own the “F-Marinos”, the self-proclaimed “Pride of Tricolore” (their colors are red, white and blue). The stadium reminded me of the original Giants Stadium in the New Jersey Meadowlands in some respects, but the floor of the stadium included a nine lane running track, with the soccer pitch in the infield, so the circumference of the seating areas was necessarily larger. While this 72,000 seat arena lacked intimacy, it did not lack fan enthusiasm, as the 28,071 who attended the match would easily hold there own with the likes of Boca Juniors or my own beloved Celtic.

I went to this match because one of my favorite professional athletes of all time, Shunsuke Nakamura, plays for the F Marinos. “Naka” had four memorable years at Celtic, where he scored 34 goals, including long distance free kick goals in each of two games against Manchester United in the UEFA Champions League (he supposedly was the first player from the far east to score in the UCL), the second of which was the matchwinner for the Hoops. Now 32 years old (a professional since age 19), a small man (about 5’10” and 150 lbs.) with a gigantic heart, Naka has appeared in 98 international matches for the Japan national team.

My match ticket cost ¥2,600, and, since it was printed in Japanese I had no idea where I was supposed to sit—it turned out that it was general admission, open seating for the area behind the goal where the vociferous F Marinos support was located.

As it turned out, this was the final match of the 34 game regular season which had began back in March. The F Marinos had contended for the league title for much of the season, but had lost 4 of their most recent 5 matches, and were in eighth place (out of 18 teams) with 51 points, 21 points behind champions Grampus Nagoya.

The visiting team was the orange and black clad Omiya Ardija from Saitama prefecture in the north Tokyo suburbs. As it turns out, Ardija is how the Japanese transliterate into roman characters the Spanish word for squirrel, “ardilla”, which is the club mascot. They appeared to bring between 1,000 and 1,500 fans, who were seated all by their lonesome at the opposite end of the stadium (over half the stadium sections were not opened).

When the starting lineups were announced (and pictures of all the players were projected on the jumbotrons at either end of the stadium), a prolonged Yokohama version of the Bronx Cheer rang out when the name and picture of the F Marinos manager was presented to the crowd.

The contest that ensued proved the axiom that one lapse in concentration can lose a match. Kickoff was at 1533, and the visitors had the ball in the F Marinos end for much of the first ten minutes, but no real scoring opportunities. In the twelfth minute, the home team attacked, and, with the Omiya goalkeeper hopelessly out of position, an F Marinos player had the ball in a wide open position about on the 18 yard line with the goal at his mercy, and managed to hit the crossbar. This turned out to be the F Marinos best scoring opportunity of the match. Although the F Marinos dominated play for the rest of the match, they allowed the Ardija one counterattack which proved fatal. The visitors won a corner kick in the 39th minute, the kick was taken, and the home team failed to defend center back Shusuke Tsubouchi, who raced into the “area” from his defensive position for a free header from maybe five yards in front of the center of the goal and planted the ball into the net. Interestingly, the home fans continued their singing and chanting as if nothing had happened.

The second half was played at a surprisingly high tempo, but the home team’s strikers were woeful. My memory of the second half was that the home team had about 10 corner kicks, all of which were taken by Naka, at least half of which were placed into promising positions, his teammates could not convert. Nearing the end of the match, the F Marinos pushed their defenders up into attacking positions in a desperate attempt to find an equalizer, but they ended up giving up a breakaway in the third minute of second half injury time to South Korea international forward Chun Soo-Lee, who dribbled close to 50 yards and then made no mistake in front of goal, giving the Ardija a 2-0 road win.

Then, the entire F Marinos team and staff assembled in a line in the middle of the field, and two club executives addressed the home crowd, who responded with boos and catcalls, and the home support behind the goal drowned out the speakers by singing and unfurling a gigantic # 3 jersey (Naoki Matsuda, #3, has been with the F Marinos for 15 seasons and over 500 appearances). I thought it might be possible that the two F Marino executives might be handed seppuku knives at any moment. The speeches then ended, and the players (who are loved and appreciated by their fans) took a lap of honor around the stadium, throwing T-shirts into the crowd.

I got back to the hotel a little after 1900; I was exhausted and I hit the hay.

SUNDAY, December 5, 2010

I did a little bit better in the sleep department Saturday night than Friday night (I woke up at about 0200 Saturday morning, at 0400 on Sunday morning). I was out the door of the hotel by 0630. As my travels were going to take me outside Tokyo prefecture, I bought the ¥2,300 “Holiday Pass”, good for one weekend day of unlimited JR East train rides throughout the metropolitan area A northbound train came along promptly, and I rode it two stops to Shinagawa station, transferring there to the clockwise Yamanote Line for the trip up to Mejiro station, northwest of central Tokyo. Crossing the Mejiro-dori, I waited for a few minutes for the #61 bus to arrive, and rode it about 10 minutes down to St. Mary’s Cathedral (aka Sekiguchi Catholic Church). This edifice, constructed in the 1960s, was very modernistic in design (the original cathedral constructed in the late 19th century was destroyed in the WWII bombing of Tokyo), and the interior reflects an extreme interpretation of the Vatican II documents (neither a crucifix nor the tabernacle were visible). I think I was the only non-Japanese person there for the 0800 Mass; two lovely ladies walked up to me and graciously greeted me and thanked me for attending (there were somewhere between 80 and 100 faithful there). One of the ladies provided me with an English translation of the readings. The pipe organ in the church sounded really good.

The Mejiro area was a very lovely part of Tokyo, containing at least two university campuses and a number of parks, and upscale apartment houses. After Mass, I got back to Mejiro station despite getting off the bus at the wrong stop (I mistook a tram right of way for the JR right of way), and continued on the Yamanote line over to Ueno Station. At the terminus of the Keisei Skyliner train, which is in a separate building about 300 yards from JR Ueno, there is a public tourist bureau which has a number of excellent free maps and publications in English; I got a great map and brochure to take with me. From Ueno, I got on the Joban line which took me out into Chiba prefecture and ultimately to Shin-Matsudo station, where I changed for the Musashino line to Funabashi-hoten, where one leaves the JR station and immediately enters a tunnel under the backstretch of Nakayama Racecourse. I arrived there shortly before noon, in time for the fifth of twelve races (first post there in December is 1000).

Nakayama can accommodate up to 165,000 spectators—the grandstand-clubhouse building is multiple levels and extends for close to 500 yards from end to end. The racing there is clockwise (opposite direction of the way races are run in the USA). It offers a turf course with two different back stretches, dirt course, and a grass steeplechase course which features tunnels under the infield, where there are buildings, spectator viewing areas and a large playground area. As there were no racing forms in English (the racing program did have the names of the horses and jockeys in English), it was tough to make selections on any basis other than watching the odds board (I made two exacta boxes where I threw out the favorites; of course, neither of which were successful). I went out mostly to take photographs and enjoy the atmosphere, which every horseplayer should experience. I’m guessing that there were at least 40,000 people in attendance.

Leaving the races after 1400 and going back to the JR station, it turned out that the Keiyo Line trains service the racecourse station, and I managed to get on a train which was a rapid service terminating at Tokyo Station. I toured around the region on various trains, then, after dark, rode back to Akihabara Station to tour and take pictures around Electric City, the center of the neon lights in Tokyo. That was it for my Sunday.

MONDAY, December 6, 2010

Because of the time differential, this would turn out to be a 38 hour day for me.

I was up very early once again, and decided to take another train tour of Tokyo before setting out for Narita. As soon as the sun was up which was around 0630, I hopped on a train which was crowded but not packed, and rode up to Kanda station, between Tokyo and Ueno, where I changed onto the Chuo line, and then on to the Chuosobu local line, for Suidobashi station, north of which is the famous Tokyo Dome stadium, home of the famous baseball team Yomiuri Giants. My beloved Notre Dame Fighting Irish had played in 1979 on the side of the Tokyo Dome, once called Korakuen Stadium, when they defeated the Miami Hurricanes 40-15 in the “Mirage Bowl” (those were the days prior to the Catholics vs. Convicts rivalry). Ironically, it had just been announced that ND would play “da U” in this year’s Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, the first time in 20 seasons that this rivalry would be played. Anyhow, I took a lot of pictures around the site, which includes a decent sized amusement park with a scary looking roller coaster and gigantic Ferris wheel, and a 40 story hotel. Also, there was an amusing restaurant, the “Hot Dog Inn”. I then set out to look for the site of the 1964 Olympic Games, but I had the station wrong, as I got off at Yoyogi, which turned out to be nowhere near the stadium (I had information that this stadium was in the Yoyogi neighborhood, but obviously that was wrong). By this time it was around 0830, and the first three counterclockwise Yamanote trains that came through were packed with passengers, and I could not get on (fortunately, trains on that line run every 3 minutes). Finally, I found a train with some room, and I got on and got back to the hotel, where I finished packing and checked-out.

I missed the 1015 northbound train on the Keihin-Tohoku line, but that was OK since the 1018 was on time. In 29 minutes I was at Nippori station, was able to walk up to the Keisei counter and buy a Skyliner ticket, and made the 1105 departure for NRT, arriving at Terminal 1 at 1144. I just can’t say enough good things about the Skyliner—great way to go from the city to the airport.

There were security personnel doing luggage searches at the exit of the NRT Terminal 1 train station; I thought the guard wanted to rifle through one of my bags, but when he saw my USA passport he waved me through.

After leaving the train station, one has to go up four different escalators to get to the Delta check-in area. I went to the Sky Priority area, and tried to use a kiosk to check-in, but the machine would not read my passport. I was assisted by a young man who was not Japanese but whose first language was not English. He informed me that I had been “randomly selected” for a “passport search” and a “full body search”; when I got my boarding passes the dreaded “SSSS” was on the one for the NRT-LAX segment. Other than the x-ray machine for my carry-ons and the WTMD machine for me, I was not searched at the security checkpoint. I then proceeded down an escalator to Immigration, where, just before I got up to the booth, an employee of Delta’s security contractor came out of nowhere and looked through my passport, corrected something on the form that was stapled inside when I had reached immigration on Friday night, and sent me up to the policeman, who detached the form and waved me through. It took about 30 minutes to get from the check-in desk to the Sky Club in the south satellite. Over the next 2.5 hours I enjoyed a few encounters with the beer machines and several cups of the really good beef soup that was on offer. Shortly after 1500 one of the monitors in the club showed that DL 284 to LAX was boarding, so I went downstairs to get on the flight. It was at the gate where I was subjected to a “full body” frisk by a female employee of Delta’s security contractor, and my carry-ons and shoes were swabbed to check for residue of explosives. Finding nothing, I was permitted to board; fortunately, the delay didn’t affect my ability to get overhead bin space for my backpack and my grandson’s Christmas present (I was sitting in 36K, the seat with the emergency slide in front of it). The right armrest in that seat folds back, which gave me a couple of inches of extra room (the left armrest was permanent). I was led to believe that 36J was going to be empty, but, at the last moment, a Japanese lady who was leading a tour group to go on a Carnival Cruise out of LA plopped into the middle seat.

We are on N672US, Ship 6312, a B747-400. There are maybe only three or four empty seats in Y. The flight left the gate at 1551 JST; I don’t have the time we were airborne. The captain indicated that the flight would take 9 hours 11 minutes. According to flightaware.com we passed over the International Date Line at the 44th parallel, crossed the California coast line near Half Moon Bay, flew down the west wall of the San Joaquin Valley overhead Avenel, then down to Fillmore, then into the pattern to land westbound on Runway 25L at LAX, where we touched down at 0834 PST, and parked at the gate 11 minutes later (scheduled arrival time was 0852, so we were 7 minutes early).

I didn’t save the menu (printed on a long white card), but ordered the beef and ended up with something like a Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes, carrots and green beans, a green salad with a clear packet of oil and vinegar dressing, a small container of something I couldn’t identify and therefore didn’t eat, a roll and butter and a small piece of somewhat flavorless cake with white frosting. I slept quite a bit of the way. Breakfast was a fruit cup consisting of two orange slices, a slice of kiwi fruit and three apple chunks, a Danish with filling (possibly apple) and a portion of blueberry yogurt.

Service seemed somewhat sparse on this flight in comparison to the westbound Pacific crossing, but, when I woke up in the middle of the flight dying of thirst and found that my two seatmates were sound asleep and not wanting to wake them, I hit the FA call button, and an FA was there within seconds

There were probably 40 people in the US citizen line at immigration and 4 inspectors working that part of the room; the officer I dealt with was affable and I was through quickly; for some reason, at customs, there was one line with 15 people in it and one line with 2 people in it—I got into the shorter line and got through that quickly. As apparently there were not too many passengers connecting onto DL flights, there was just one DL baggage service man using a cart to take the re-checked bags over to Terminal 5.

I walked outside LAX to get over to T5 to reclear security. The SkyPriority lane was not open at that time. They weren’t using the NoS at that hour, so TSA was straightforward and I got through that without incident. The first clock I saw airside read 0936; Flight 1754 for ATL was scheduled to depart at 1135.

I checked out the renovated SkyClub; got a warm welcome from one of the four concierges on duty. The first big change is that the rotunda, where you could look down onto the concourse, is gone, having been filled in with floor space, and that area is now a lounge. The area where the business carrels were located has been redone, the carrels are gone, and have been replaced by comfortable seating, including a few recliner chairs. I wanted to take a shower but they were occupied. I went over to the new self-service bar, and tried to draw myself a “Delta SkyClub Pale Ale”, but the keg was empty and only a few bits of foam came out. I was able to draw a Red Hook ESB, which was a good substitute. I spent my time catching up on phone calls and e-mails.

At 1100 I went downstairs to get on the ATL flight, which I was really looking forward to, as it was the B777-200-LR with the new fully reclining sleeper seats. As it turned out, our flight crew was not there, as they had been on another flight, which was on the ground but not yet parked. By 1115 the crew had arrived and F boarding commenced. As there were 45 of us in F, all anticipating the sleeper seats, boarding was somewhat like a cavalry charge. The tail number on our plane was N704DK. As it turned out, this aircraft made up the equipment for DL008, the ATL-DXB flight.

We left the gate at 1144, took off from runway 25R at 1201 PST, landed on runway 26R at ATL at 1822, 3 hours 22 minutes en route, and parked at the gate four minutes later (the captain got the plane slowed to taxi speed at the turnoff point for Concourse E). We took off to the west, and, when turned back east, flew over Thermal, California, Prescott, Arizona, Albuquerque and Tucumcari, New Mexico, Panhandle, Texas, Sayre and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Fort Smith, Arkansas, Memphis, Tennessee and just north of Rockmart, Georgia (source: flightaware.com).

I didn’t eat anything on the plane; all I wanted to do was sleep, and I hit the “ZZZ” button on the panel on the wall of my palatial suite (13A), and got in a supine position very quickly. This thing really was horizontal. I woke up just west of Oklahoma City, and got something to drink, then decided to test out the seat and the AVOD system. I got the seat in a very nice recliner position, with the leg rest just right, and checked out the lumbar massage feature, which was very nice. The tray table is more like a small desk. The video monitor is the widest I’ve ever seen on a plane; the screen was bigger than the screen on my Dell netbook computer. The AVOD movie library was fantastic; current releases, foreign films in a number of languages, and some of the classics, such as “Gone With the Wind”, “Ben Hur” and “Caddyshack”. Needing a good laugh, I went for Al Czervik’s exquisite torturing of Judge Elihu Smails. This flight was over all too quickly. Just a beautiful run.

This being a flight out of LAX, there was the possibility that celebrities would be on board. Sitting in seat 10B appeared to me to be tennis great Andre Agassi. Sitting directly across from me was a gentleman who was recognized by several women walking back to coach; one of them asked me to take a picture of her standing next to him, which I did with a smile. I didn’t recognize this gentleman but he was extremely friendly, and, before the flight was over, I had a running conversation with him. He turned out to be R&B star Charlie Wilson, who was in The Gap Band during the disco era, and now is on his own; I looked him up and noticed that he is a Grammy nominee. Really good guy.

Upon deplaning at E11, I went into the former BE club where the keg of Sweetwater 420 was empty but the keg of Molson Canadian was not. Took care of some business, and headed to the train for Gate A19 and the final leg of this remarkable mileage run, Flight 1328 to RDU. As it turned out, the inbound flight was late arriving, and departure was pushed back from 2031 to 2040. The door closed around 2040, but we didn’t start push back for several minutes, and then we managed to get in a line of at least 12 departing flights, meaning that we didn’t get airborne until 2123 from runway 27R. Sitting on the right side of the plane, I could tell that we flew north of Augusta and Columbia, then northeast to RDU, which we had to circle and then land on runway 23R, touching down at 2217 and arriving at the gate 5 minutes later at 2222, 25 minutes late.

I was wearing my black button down Delta/FT shirt, which one of the FAs noticed, and told me she had just read the article about us in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The lead FA Wanda came over and joined in the conversation. This crew could not have been nicer.

On the ground at RDU, I was hoping to make the last public transit bus into Raleigh, scheduled to leave RDU T2 at 2241. Unhappily, the last bus departed a couple of minutes early, and even though my bag was about tenth onto the carousel, it reached me at 2243, meaning that I would have to shell out for a cab to go downtown for the final event of this MR.

GREYHOUND BUS STATION, Raleigh, NC

$37 and 25 minutes later, at about 2310, the cabbie drops me off at the Greyhound depot just west of the center of the city. Although there are probably 80 people in the terminal, there is no line at the ticket counter and a very good ticket agent named Oscar sold me a $59 one-way ticket to Washington, via Richmond, for the 2335 departure. This is the first time I’d been on a Greyhound bus since 1977. While the clientele was quite a bit different than one would see on a Delta jet, I was really impressed by the Greyhound operation, which is owned by UK based First Group (I’ve taken a number of trips on various First buses and trains on my British excursions). Ticketing and baggage tagging was computerized and quick and efficient (although the passenger is responsible for getting his luggage to the bus hold). The drivers were dressed in a suit, shirt and tie and could really drive. Also, the busses on which I traveled were expresses; the only stop on the way to DC was at the bus terminal in Richmond where I changed busses.

TUESDAY, December 7, 2010

There were only a couple of empty seats on the bus (I think it seated 47 passengers). As Raleigh is not on a north-south interstate, we reached midnight at roughly Wake Forest, North Carolina (the town, not the university) as we patiently but steadily rolled up US 1 until reaching Henderson, NC, where we joined the I-85 for the run to Petersburg, VA, where I-85 ends at its junction with I-95, then the last 30 miles or so into Richmond. The GPS feature on my I-phone worked great, so I could follow the route. Once we got on the interstate, the bus was going at the posted limit of 70 mph (Virginia has now increased its speed limit on rural interstates from 65 to 70). We reached the Richmond bus station, located on The Boulevard across from the Richmond Flying Squirrels minor league ballpark near exit 78 on I-95 at 215, 10 minutes ahead of schedule.

There were at least 400 people waiting inside the Richmond bus station (the weather outside was about 25° and clear but windy), including a significant number of Marines headed for Camp LeJeune. A sign on one of the walls indicated that the fire marshal had rated the capacity of this station at 2,000. I was amazed both at the number of people traveling in the middle of the night and at the number of travel options that Greyhound provides for nocturnal creatures.

Boarding started at 0240 for the 0300 departure to DC. We backed out of the parking space at 0304, and within moments were on the I-95 for the 106 miles or so to First and L Streets, NE. Patrick, our bus driver, was going to drive as far as Cleveland, with rest stops in DC, Breezewood and Pittsburgh, PA. Conditions were “clean and green” on the big slab, with only one small work zone near Ashland. I don’t think he hit the brakes once; when we got into Prince William County we were able to use the northbound HOV reversible lanes, shot over the 14th street bridge, careened down the ramp from the Southwest Freeway into the Third Street Tunnel, only having to stop for red lights twice before parking at the Greyhound terminal at 0443, 22 minutes ahead of schedule. My seat was really comfortable on this vehicle, and I really enjoyed the ride. Once off the bus, I quickly got my bag out of the hold, waited in the warmth of the terminal for a few minutes ahead of the 0500 opening of the Washington Metro, then walked north a block and east a block to the New York Avenue/Florida Avenue/Gallaudet station on the red line.

The only problem was that, even though the Metro commences operations at 5 a.m. (i.e., commuting from Annapolis, to DC, the first train westbound from New Carrollton (just west of the Beltway, 18 miles from here) leaves at the stroke of 5), the first northbound train on the red line out of this station didn’t materialize until 5:42 a.m. To avoid the cold, I got in one of the elevators, then got on a southbound train and rode 3 stops to kill time and stay warm, picking up the northbound train at Gallery Place. I got to the Silver Spring stop just short of 0600, and was in the car and headed for home a couple of minutes after that, reaching here by 0640. I woke up in time to listen to the start of Rush Limbaugh.

CONCLUSION

I earned 31,588 MQMs, all of which have posted, and I am at 130,162 for 2010, safely back for year two of the Diamond Level.

I also earned 60,538 SkyMiles which have posted, and am awaiting the 25,000 SkyMile bonus to post, just 14,462 SkyMiles short of a TATL BE trip. Not too bad for a ticket that cost a little over one grand.

As I think you can see, I simply love the going. Train travel in Japan is a blast, from the Japanese signage to the crazy jingles they play at each train station, to the incredibly clean trains and frequent service. I missed out on “My First Aomori”, but plan to be there in 2015 when the Shinkansen runs to Hokkaido. I can put up with Amtrak; I was impressed by Greyhound. A professional operator like First Group could really make some great changes at Amtrak if it were given the chance to do so. Of course, Delta was Delta. I met a lot of great Delta professionals along the way, both PMDL and PMNW, and I express my gratitude to all of them, and wish them all a Merry Christmas and a Happy and prosperous New Year.

POSTSCRIPT

I wanted to remember that 69 years ago on December 7 was the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, “the day that will live in infamy”. Visiting the incredibly fascinating nation of Japan and enjoying meeting and mingling with Japanese people, it is hard to imagine that this group of people once produced monsters like Tojo. I hearken back to my visit to the Arizona memorial on my only visit to Hawaii in 1988, where I burst into tears upon setting foot on the float that sits above the sunken ship where hundreds of our finest countrymen are entombed. May we never forget those that perished at Pearl Harbor and at other places in the defense of our country; may something like Pearl Harbor never happen again. Thank you to all who sacrificed so that I could have a magnificent mileage run to the Land of the Rising Sun. May we and the Japanese live together on this earth in peace and friendship.