When we left off last, I was sitting in the Domestic Arrivals section of Fukuoka International Airport, waiting for the Navy shuttle bus which would take me to the base in Sasebo. You will be happy – well, hopefully – to know that I was able to catch said shuttle and was successfully delivered to my final destination.
Almost.
But before I get to that, let me let you in on Japan’s secret to low unemployment: Toll booth attendants. It was a 90-minute bus ride from the airport to the base, but we probably could have made it in half an hour if it wasn’t for the toll booths that are situated every, oh, fifteen feet or so along the route. So much for “free” ways.
It’s a good thing I didn’t try to rent a car and make the trip myself, otherwise I’d have been so broke by the time I got to Sasebo I would have had to have taken a part-time job, probably as a toll booth attendant.
We finally pulled onto the base around a quarter after midnight, much too late for me to catch the 2330 (that’s 11:30pm to you civilians) launch out to the ship. But not to worry! According to the launch schedule that had been e-mailed to me, I knew there was another one scheduled for 0130 (1:30am), so I just set my luggage down on the pier and waited.
And waited. And waited. And…
Before I knew it, it was 0145 and there was no sign of the launch that should have had me halfway out to the ship by then. I wasn’t comfortable. Did I mention that it gets cold in Japan during December? Just like America. Small world.
After a few more minutes of scanning the waters for the launch that was never going to come, I gave up, picked up my bags and walked back to the road, where I flagged down a taxi and asked him to take me to a decent hotel nearby, preferably one without waterbeds and/or hourly rates, if you get my drift.
Then came the inevitable confused exchange between English-only foreigner – me – and a cabdriver whose English was so bad he should have been hacking in New York. After telling him approximately 27 times that I did NOT want to go to the base hotel – I wasn’t sure they would provide accommodations for a mere contractor – he finally said “Holiday Inn hotel?” I told him that would be fine.
Great, I thought to myself, travel thousands of miles to an exotic foreign land and end up staying at a Holiday Inn. Probably has a McDonald’s and a Chuck E. Cheese for Oriental dining at its finest.
But much to my surprise, I guess to him “Holiday Inn” was a generic term (though I was to find out later there actually IS a Holiday Inn in Sasebo), because he took me to the Chisun Hotel in downtown Sasebo. There, for the very reasonable sum of 8200 yen (about $80 American), I was cosseted in a comfortable room complete with king-size bed, a couple of comfortable chairs, cable TV and in-room Internet access. There was even a fridge with one solitary bottle of water, which took me about 2 seconds to gulp down in order to alleviate the dehydration that generally follows 18 hours of flying and food with more salt content than Utah.
The mattress was a bit on the firm side – as the Japanese prefer – but it didn’t take me long to drop off, after first e-mailing Pamela to let her know that a) my plane didn’t crash and b) I wasn’t sleeping on the pier and being nibbled by wharf rats.
I was tempted to sleep in the next day and then stroll around downtown Sasebo, but in the end my sense of responsibility – probably more of a curse than a sense, actually – won the day and I was up by 6 and on the 0730 (7:30am, but you probably knew that) and was on board ship and present for morning quarters when the staff assembled at 0830 (8:30…oh, never mind, if you haven’t gotten it by now you never will).
The USNS 1st Lt Jack Lummus has since departed Sasebo and we are now anchored in Yokosuka. As Tokyo is a mere 1-hour train ride away, plans are afoot for a sojourn to that legendary burg on Wednesday. I hear they have a great Holiday Inn there.
