Toots And Fairbs Go To Japan August 1st

We're jumping way ahead here but it's been awhile and we thought you'd like to hear about something more current. We'll fill in the spaces later. If the punctuation is a little strange in parts it's because the keyboard reverts to Japanese on it's own accord seemingly whenever it wants.

Our last night in Australia was spent in Cairns. Like a lot of Australian cities it's a jumping off point for tours and travel in the region. You wouldn't want to stay in Cairns very long and nobody does. It does have it's own ticky tacky beachfront charm though. The Esplanade, French for Strip, is lined with with restaurants, food courts, hostels advertising safaris and trips to the outback, Barrier Reef, rain forest, waterfalls, helicopter rides, even Uluru (Ayers Rock) which is a good 20 hour drive. They'll also get you the best deals on car and campervan rentals and set you up with van relocations for free. Don't expect miracles and don't expect to pay the lowest price advertised and you can stay busy for weeks.

Our hostel was a converted motel from the 50s, the Bellview. A lot of the hostels in Australia were originally motels and most are old mom and pops that have seen better days and offer little compared to hostels in New Zealand. The Bellview though was an exception. It's reception area was open right on the strip like a carnival barker's booth and you entered through an open air hallway into a courtyard with two stories of rooms surrounding a pool. There's a TV lounge, kitchen and common areas where people were playing cards, sitting around drinking wine and watching television. It all seemed like something from the past, like the hallway we walked down was a time portal and we were all enjoying a night out from decades ago.

Our room was upstairs and unlike many of the places we stayed came with a bathroom, coffee maker, fridge and TV. It was also the cleanest room we'd had for the last two weeks. An English mystery was just starting on the Australian Broadcasting public station so we made a quick trip to a nearby grocery store got our yogurt and headed back to the room.

The next morning - August 1st, we boarded the shuttle to return to the airport we arrived at the night before. Thankfully, we took an early shuttle. We thought our biggest problem would be getting our backpacks past the scales and coming in below the carry on limit. That means we wear extra clothes and pack all our pockets with the heavy stuff like books. We made that with no problem and thought we were home free, with time for something to eat, check email and relax before boarding.

While we were waiting for our tickets to be printed the woman behind the counter asked for proof of an outbound flight from Japan. We looked at each other, looked back at her and waited for it all to be a joke on her part. It wasn't - she was dead serious. I'd checked with the Japanese Consulate before leaving and was assured that there would be no problem, that with visas for both China and Russia anyone at Japanese immigration would know we weren't planning on hiding in the Japanese Alps and overstaying our sixty day limit. Lonely Planet said not to worry, nobody checks and nobody gets sent back to where they came from but the airline, JetStar, plays by the regulations and wouldn't let us board without proof that we would leave Japan and that they wouldn't be responsible for bringing us back to Australia.

We ran for the Internet cafe to see what we could arrange - maybe a cheap flight we could just kiss goodbye to get in but everything from Japan - Singapore, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand were about $900 - 1000. The only cheap flights were back to Australia and they were booked and too expensive to blow away.

We had to wait for a computer - they were filled with people with the same problem as us. Everyone thinking of where they wanted to go, how they could get there cheaply and get some kind of confirmation before the boarding call. We looked up the ferry from Osaka to Shanghai which was what we had planned on taking but hadn't booked because we didn't know how long we wanted to stay in Japan. Well, we knew now and tried booking passage for August 22nd. After entering all the information we got a message back that we would receive a confirmation within 24 hours and you know what that means - 23 hours maybe. We stopped there and ran downstairs to call and see if we could reserve over the phone and have them send an email right away. Our phone card, with plenty of time left mysteriously stopped working. Out came the Visa card for a call I don't want to know about and talking to a person, a low talker, was just as successful as booking on the Internet. We ran up the stairs again, our seond of what would be a zillion trips up and down to try something else. With nothing left to do we went back to JetStar and asked if we could get the flight moved to the next day. They said sure, no problem, no charge, it's done - they probably could do it in their sleep. I'd bet it's the first thing they learn in airline ticket school.

Up the stairs to the Internet one more time - something we could do in our sleep now - we decided to book the ferry so we'd have a confirmation by the next day when we'd try it all over again. They sent back a note right away saying that we were tentatively scheduled to depart on the 22nd for Shanghai. Was this enough? Could we beat the system that had left us exhausted, sweaty and stinking like we'd just got back from three day walk in the bush? All we had to do was print it off and go back downstairs. After reading this far you know what's next - there are no printers. By some strange twist of fate there was a girl next to us with an email address that would let us forward our unconfirmed ferry schedule to JetStar. Off it went and back down we went to the counter to see if it would work. The ticket woman was able to read it on her monitor and said yeah, this should work, all I have to do is call our main office, have them print it and then fax it to us. Ten minutes later she has it and says we're all set, we leave the same time tomorrow. At this point we can't go back to Cairns and wait another day. Can she please just make it all go away and put us back on our original flight? This doesn't look so easy but after a few minutes at the keyboard she prints our tickets and we go up to the depature lounge for what we hope will be our last trip on the stairs.

We make a beeline for the metal detectors, anything that will get us closer to the plane. We strip off our coats, backpacks and shoes and throw them on the conveyer belt wanting to pick them up and blend in with everyone else. I picked up my coats, my boots and wondered what happened to my backpack - it was on the ground by the x-ray machine. No surprise there, but it was only a pair of scissors that they saw and then decided to let go through. We made it. As I put my boots on a shadow came over my feet and a very tall man asked me to "step this way." I'd been selected for a random explosives check. I was frisked, wanded and had the backpacked re x-rayed and chemically checked for explosives and given the OK. I looked like crap, smelled worse, had changed reservations twice in an hour and had only carry on luggage; it all came with the territory.

We did make it on the plane and settled in for our 7 1/2 hour flight - it's a lot longer than you'd think. JetStar is the discount arm of Qantas and offers everything for a price - food, movies, drinks and anything that would help make the flight go by quicker. We settled on pretzels and juice - not a real time killer.


There was a highlight to the flight though. After a few hours the sun was setting and the clouds turned a dark grey black. They had piled up into strange shapes like dead trees with no branches or stalagmites resting in black pools of ice. It was eerie, like something from a science fiction movie or a William Blake engraving of the Inferno.

We landed and headed for immigration. Armed with our declaration forms and fax from the ferry company would we make it through? The answer was yes - no one asked us anything. We had our pictures taken, our index fingers printed, got a smile and a big welcome to Japan.

Off we headed to the information desk and ATM. Did I mention that our hotel reservation for the night had been cancelled that morning? That was something we found in our email as we bounced up and down the stairs in the Cairns airport like yoyos on big rubber bands.

The information desk had rooms available at the airport for $192 and some in Osaka for $175. Toots rose to the occasion, took over and said how do we get into Osaka? It's 10 pm, dark, no one speaks English and we found ourselves on the shuttle bus to the train station in town. This is what travel's all about right?

The bus stopped, we got off and looked around. A lot of good that did. We walked up one street and saw nothing and turned around. We walked through food stalls with thousands of people running by looking for bars, taxis and trying to get home. We saw our first hotel up ahead and walked into a lobby with more marble than a Donald Trump cathouse. They could have had fifty rooms available and I doubt they'd have given one to us in our state. They said they were full but gave us a map to other hotels - the Ritz Carlton and the Hilton among them. All the streets looked the same, it was 11:30 and getting desperate. All of a sudden Toots has a cape, super hero boots and enough energy to run with the bulls at Pamploma. One more street, another block and what looks suspiciously like a hotel lobby and even better a name over the door - "The Second Inn." I'd about given up, but Toots had that look in her eyes and there was no stopping her. No marble in the lobby, a block away from the Ritz and we have a room for about $75. We had no idea what it would be like, but this being Japan it was spotless, had a flat screen TV, Japanese Robes, two beds, slippers and toothbrushes. The Justice League just gained a new member.