Have you heard of anyone that had four hours to connect but still missed their flight? Well, that us.....
Everything went so well at first, our taxi showed up on time to pick us up, our flight was on schedule, the food and service was so nice in the flight, and there were no crying children or noisy teenagers during the whole trip. Then we arrived in Japan, four hours to spear, waiting for the last leg of our journey back home. We even checked the board and see that the 7:05pm flight to Taipei was at gate 33. We shopped and dined and enjoyed all the nice amenities at Narita airport.
Finally, six o'clock arrived. We walked to gate 33, a crowd was gathering already. I checked again. Yap, All Nippon Airline, 7:05 to Taipei. There was an announcement saying this flight will be slightly delayed. Not a big problem. 6:55pm, boarding started. Flight attendants were checking people's boarding passes and passport. Sam was ahead of me and passed without problem. When it was my turn, I was checked by a different agent and stopped. She told me that this was a United flight and my flight was with a different carrier.
I was super shocked!!! Sam and I ran to the board and checked again. There was another flight that also departs at 7:05pm operated by ANA, but was at gate 44. By that time, it had already passed 7:05. We still ran as fast as we could to gate 44, of course, the flight was gone already. I was so upset, trying to figure out how this could happen. The lack of sleep didn't help, either.
Now that I think of it, maybe it was because we arrived too early at the airport, and all the flight information was not updated yet. Sam and I both remembered seeing two flights to Taipei when we first checked the info board. Both of them were at gate 33. United and ANA are partner airlines so even tough it was a United flight, there was also a ANA flight assigned to it. And both flights depart at 7:05, which just made things even more confusing. The only difference was the flight numbers, ours was 1087 and the other 0867. They were a bit similar, and I must have not paid attention to it since all the other information looked correct. Sam told me afterwards that he thought the flight numbers were different but didn't insist in checking because I looked so sure of myself. Lesson learned. All person on the same trip should triple check every information even if the other ones think they were right!!!
Anyway, the flight attendants at the gate were super nice, though. They scheduled us for the exact flight back to Taipei for the following day so that we could avoid a penalty, working overtime leading us through custom, found our luggage, and showed us the counter for hotel booking.
The only big problem I had was trying to make an international phone call back home so that I could inform my parents this situation and tell them not to come to pick us up at the airport that night, but we needed Yen to buy a phone card from the machine. Luckily I still have some US dollars on me and Sam went to buy a bottle of water in order to get changes in Yen. When using the phone card, it was all in Japanese, and I had no idea what it was saying. I gave up trying after a few times, cause the flight attendant was waiting for us, and we did not want to keep her waiting. We finally made the call from our hotel, don't even want to know how much that cost us.....
So we have an extra day in Japan, since our flight won't be until 7:05pm tonight. Nothing we can do about it now, might as well enjoy it. I feel much better, after a good night sleep and a good breakfast. The buffet style breakfast was totally the turning point for me of this disaster!!! We woke up around five this morning and was at the restaurant door waiting for it to open at 6:30. There were all types of breakfast, western style, Asian style, pan cakes, salad, toast, you name it!!! Everything tasted sooooo good!!! Good thing I was super hungry cause I didn't have a proper dinner the night before. I totally enjoyed it!!!
Since we don't know the area and have no idea where we could spend a day, we figured we would just head to the airport early. We found a good spot at the food court to sit and work. Can't believe we will be coming back here again in three days cause Sam's parents planned a family trip to visit Japan during Chinese New Year. That was the main reason we came back this time. Well, at least we will know our way around the airport by then~~~
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