Getting to Tokyo

The check-in process went relatively smoothly, though the American airline does have stricter security protocols than other carriers, so my suitcase was thoroughly rifled through before I was able to drop it off and get my boarding card.

The flight is a connecting route that continues on through to San Francisco after stopping off at Tokyo to take on more passengers.

The same flight had been cancelled the day before due to concerns about the safety of landing at Narita and a few of the passengers were back for a second round of waiting.

Scanning the waiting room, there were a smattering of foreign journalists, quite a few Americans who were switching at Tokyo for connecting flights to Detroit and other cities in the U.S. and plenty of Japanese citizens. At least half of those booked on the flight were Chinese, heading either to Tokyo or through to the U.S..

Everything appeared to be going smoothly and we looked on track for a 7.15am boarding and a rare punctual departure from Beijing’s capital airport, but, then the pilot emerged from the plane and talked to the staff at the boarding gate.

It was a long time before any announcement was made, but the flight was eventually cancelled, no official reason was ever given. After that,  a farcical and chaotic scramble among passengers ensued as Delta promised to get everyone on board two Japan Airlines’ flights that were due to depart that afternoon.

By about midday, all the passengers had finally been assigned boarding cards for the afternoon flight - I was even lucky enough to get bumped up to business class.

Tokyo’s Narita airport was calm when we finally arrived at close to 8pm local timet. Passengers were ushered quickly through customs control and there were no delays in collecting baggage.
Aside from my own Delta airlines flight, there were few other cancellations, with most services arriving in Tokyo on time.

There were a  few small signs that things weren’t quite back to normal yet, as we alighted the plane and strode the corridors through to customs, we passed a big pile of sleeping bags that must have been used the night before by stranded passengers.

After passing through customs (where you’re required to “digitally” provide your fingerprints), I headed out to the main concourse of the airport to find that transport to the city center had been disturbed by the quake.

Thought there were fewer bus services running, the Narita Airport Express train line was open again and I took the relatively empty train into the city center.

The Wall Street Journal reports that there were quite a few people heading the other way as the embassies of some European countries in Japan had begun to advise tourists and foreign residents of Tokyo to leave the city due to the risk of another large aftershock and also the uncertainty regarding radioactive waste from the damaged nuclear power plants to the north of the city.

The Japanese staff I talked to at the airport and hotel all seemed calm and the streets of Tokyo looked much like I remembered them from my last trip here in 2008.

That said, as I enquired about getting a Japanese phone for my stay, the woman behind the counter explained that due to the earthquake, the phone network was patchy and that she herself was still unable to call her parents.