As mentioned before, I was originally supposed to be in Japan for two weeks, seeing a game in Tokyo today, and then two more in the coming few days. But Robbie Williams happened. As luck would have it, in my 20 year Robbie-versary, he finally arranged the fan-only, no hits concert he’s been talking about for the last couple of years, and I got an invitation. And had to change all my plans because it’s happening in London 5 days before I was supposed to leave Japan. So here I am, more thrilled about seeing Rob tomorrow than disappointed about missing the Rugby World Cup, but still a bit bummed.
By the time I'd reached Tokyo, I’d seen all the rugby I could and had no real agenda for my free day in the city. So I spent it shopping. Because I wasn’t willing to stand in the giant queues at the game merchandise stands, my first stop was the Rugby World Cup Megastore, which was a bit of a disappointment. From the last two RWCs, I've got a tradition of buying a mug with all the teams on it, a mini rugby ball, and then t-shirts and/or scarves for the three teams I always try to see.
The Megastore had just one of these. The only mugs were silly ones featuring the tournament mascots (in Japan, everything has a mascot), none with the teams. No mini rugby balls, only full sized. No scarves. The t-shirts for Scotland and New Zealand were all sold out, so I got magnets for them, but I was lucky that one of the 5 remaining Canada t-shirts was my size. I tried to find some other generic RWC tees, but the only sizes left in the ones I liked were XS or XXXXXL. So I grabbed a tea towel (the only item with all the team logos on it) and called it a day.
My next stop was a high end shopping area
called Ginza, which is apparently Tokyo's most popular shopping district, but
which I chose because it was only 2 subway stops away from my hotel and had a
giant Uniqlo store. Just lucky, I guess. My luggage was already too overstuffed
to shove much more in, so I spent most of the afternoon just browsing, but I
did pick up a few small things. When I was finished with my shopping, I stopped back in at my hotel, and then went to see the 15th century Hie Shrine right behind it, got some dinner, and went to bed early for my 5am wakeup.
I had a 10:10am flight from Tokyo to Zurich, but given that Narita airport was a 90 minute bus ride from my hotel, I had to check out by 6:30 to catch the first bus of the day heading out there. Unfortunately I'd only slept about 4 hours overnight, though, since I was so stressed that I'd get bumped off my 12 hour flight and be stuck another day. SwissAir's booking system had decided I wasn't allowed to reserve a seat before, or even during check-in, despite many being available. When I dropped my bag at the check-in desk and she handed me a boarding pass with the word standby on it, the conversation went about like this:
"Why does this say standby? I'm not flying standby, your reservation system has just been refusing to let me select one of the many open seats, for no reason."
"It's because business class is totally full. The gate agents will call your name if they can give you a seat."
"But it wasn't full when I booked it, there were a lot of seats, it just wouldn’t give me one. I shouldn't be punished because your system didn't work correctly for me."
"I'm sorry for the inconvenience, you go through security over there."
Grrrrrr...
When the gate agents showed up, they were at least helpful and got me a seat right at the front of business class... which was great until after dinner when I tried to lie down and found that the seat was broken and wouldn’t move more than a few inches. The cabin manager came and beat on it for a while, took a look around, then told me to pack up all my stuff because the only seats available were in first class. So I got to spend most of the flight in first class, which wasn’t bad at all, despite the plane being built during Jesus’ boyhood and never having been updated since. Not exactly the lap of modern luxury, but still pretty comfy. Take that, stupid booking system!
My flight from Zurich to London was delayed about half an hour, and then with the awful Saturday night traffic, I didn’t get to my hotel until nearly 8pm (already Sunday morning in the city I’d started the day in), but it didn’t matter. I’m just happy to be here, having a lazy Sunday before the big show tomorrow.
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