Hopefully the start of my trip does not set the tone for the rest or it’s going to be a crazy, chaotic adventure.

The chaos began at LAX. Despite oversleeping, I got to LAX with sufficient time (thanks to short lines at security and having CLEAR – I haven’t seen LAX that uncrowded in a while. The forecasted rain didn’t hit until I was safely inside the auditory, which was a plus. But that’s where the adventure started. When the rain hit, it hit hard and was accompanied by thunder and lightning. Our flight was delayed – the crew announced that when there is lightning, the ground crew had to take cover for safety, so they couldn’t load baggage. Plus, a plane that took off right around our scheduled departuretime was struck by lightning on takeoff and had to return.

The flight was relatively uneventful, despite some turbulence. But then…

Our already-delayed flight was supposed to land at Narita airport but a plane skidded off the runway earlier in the day. Narita only has two runways, so the closure of one created chaos. As we were approaching Tokyo, the flight crew announced that there was an incident and we were going to divert to Haneda due to the long line of planes waiting to land. The lady sitting next to me, and many others on the flight, had connecting flights at Narita – I’m glad I didn’t have that added chaos!

Once we landed, the co-pilot aligned that the captain made the decision to divert because we would have been in the air another hour and we didn’t have sufficient fuel. So we sat on the plane for close to another hour as we awaited further instructions. They were apparently debating whether to reposition the plane back to Narita or let us off at Haneda. The decision was eventually made to deplane at Haneda, so they brought out air stairs and sent shuttles our way. On the positive, immigration and customs had one of the shortest lines I have ever seen at an international airport. I expected huge lines due to all the diverted flights.

While Haneda is normally consider more convenient than Narita, that isn’t necessarily the case when you are traveling at rush hour. There is a convenient express train that goes from Narita to Tokyo station. I planned to take a taxi from there to my ryokan (a Japanese inn). Instead, I took the monorail, which was crowded with rush hour passengers (but, fortunately, had luggage racks) and had to transfer to the crowded Yamanote line (a popular commuter route).

But I made it. And I went to sleep early. Now to meet my old home stay families for lunch…