2009 - Kenny Baldridge - "No Reservations"

a travel blog by Kennyboy12

This trip is pretty much one month, 4 countries, no plans.
I'll be visiting: Thailand, India, Egypt & Japan.

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Trip turned out to be ~

THAILAND
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Bangkok
Damnoen Saduak

INDIA
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Kolkata
Varanasi
New Delhi
Agra

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
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Dubai (Overnight stop. 25 hours in the airport...)

QATAR
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Doha (another 7 hours in this airport after leaving Dubai.)

EGYPT
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Cairo
Baharyia Oasis
Luxor

UZBEKISTAN
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Tashkent (60 min in this country!)

SOUTH KOREA
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Seoul (3 hours in this airport.)

JAPAN
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Misawa
Tokyo
view all 12 photos for this trip

Misawa, Japan

Made it to Misawa!
So lets finish off day 26,
-7.13.2009-
I got on the flight to Narita with no one sitting next to me and about an hour forty later I was in Japan!
Ok, so for those of you who might have seen the news (or maybe not) apparently my flight to Japan made the news. haha. I don't think I have ever had a more wicked landing experience ever in my life. So we like hit turbulence seconds before touching down, and I mean like a few feet off the ground I was out of my seat turbulence, but I guess that was our back tires touching down before our front, but I'm not sure. And then we are on the runway and I realize the pilots have turned the plane and we're now skidding on the runway at a few hundred miles an hour and still bouncing around. haha it was weird, people were like screaming and panicking, and the flight attendant sitting in front of me facing me was just smiling away and rolling her eyes at the passengers and we're both laughing.
Now that was a landing.

Ok, after the roller coaster landing I get through customs and the older lady met me out in baggage claim. She has a name by the way... haha, it's Noriko. So Noriko knew the type of rail pass I was trying to get so she showed me where the rail booth was and began speaking Japanese to the person working there to figure out if I can get that pass. The lady working turned to me and said that JR passes had to be acquired from your home country, outside of Japan... I told her no, that I know some do but I checked their website and this pass had to be bought in Japan because you had to show a plane ticket leaving Japan. Well I went to the bathroom real quick and experienced the most high tech toilet it was crazy. When I came back Noriko had looked up train passes to Misawa and their prices and they were, like I already knew, really expensive one way... well Noriko said there is an official JR office one floor down, so she took me there and talked to them for me and they were all like, "Oh yea, the four flexible day pass, no problem, it's this much and will you be using it today?" haha super easy, so I told them I was going to Misawa and they made all my train reservations, and gave me my tickets and told me what to do and then I was off! Noriko was going just to Tokyo so, which was my first stop and train change, so we got seats together here, this whole times she's helping me figure all this out. 70 min later we arrive in Tokyo, before she leaves she helps me find my next train and how to use my passes. Then I go through and say goodbye and now I'm on my own. haha. So this is my first time on the bullet train.

I'll be on this train for about 3 hours, from Tokyo all the way to Hachinohe where I then have 15 min to figure out where the next train is, the one to Misawa. Everything goes smoothly, the scenery was amazing.

and the train to Misawa was delayed like 30 min. I finally arrive in Misawa around 7:10pm and hurry to the taxis. omg, these taxis were AMAZING! The drivers have like a button that opens and closes the door automatically, so you never have to really work, and their meters works! And when you arrive at your destination.... They print you out a receipt! They don't ask for tips, they don't "get lost" and have to stop and ask others for directions, they don't charge more for being a tourist, they are clean, and they don't really talk to you but are still very nice. It was cool. So it's now like 7:20 and I walk up to the office outside the Misawa Air Force Base and use their phone to call Josh.... No answer... so I call again... Still no answer... So I call his work.... An answer, but it's not him and the person on the phone doesn't know where Josh is.... So now I spend the next hour calling his room and no one is answering. I ask the officer working if there are any hostels around or an internet cafe (which he began laughing when i said internet cafe 'cause he prolly thought I wanted to stay there lol) so I could find a cheap place to stay online. He asked around for me and said the nearest hotel was across the street, for about 5,000 yen. So I went there, got a room which ended up being 6,200 yen but breakfast was included. The room was really cool, small for the price but this is Japan. So I went to my room and got situated, plugged in my phone and fell asleep.
-7.14.2009-
Ok, so this morning I woke up around 6:30am. I went downstairs to have breakfast then went back to my room, packed and checked out. I go BACK to the base, it's now around 7:40am and i try calling josh again. He finaly picks up half asleep and is all oh crap, hey I'll uh be there soon. A little later a guy walks in to the front office and asks if I was Kenny, I said said yes and so he checks me in and I get my visitors pass. we then drive into the base and pick josh up. Josh isn't allowed to really leave the base due to a little thing that happened haha. Anyways, I'm finally at Joshes place. Josh has to go to work at noon, so he goes to take a nap, and I decide to crash as well on the couch. Even though I slept for a solid 9 hours the previous night, I still slept hard for another four and a half hours, this trip has worked me over.
Josh comes back around um, 4-ish with food and after two hours he heads back to work. So I've just been chillin' around relaxin' and watching movies on TV and talking to Kumiko on facebook about meeting in Tokyo. Tomorrow I don't know whats up, I think I'm going to go see Joshes work, or walk around Misawa. I'll find out tomorrow. It sucks though 'cause Josh can't leave the base, and he also has to work from noon to midnight. But his probation ends the day I planned on leaving for Tokyo. So I will now be leaving for Tokyo Saturday morning so we can go do something Friday night.
Well, I've uploaded some pictures from Thailand and India on facebook. I will get some from Egypt up, then upload a few from all three up on here.
byee.

Seattle, United States

July 17th 2009:
So Josh was finally off restriction on Friday so him and I went off base. He still wasn't allowed to drive so i got to drive while on base, prolly not legally, but it was still fun. We went out to get some food and some other things then went back to his place, i showered josh did some laundry then we headed out to the clubs. we started drinking around 8 and we had to be back on base before 12 but there was a bar on base so after 12 we hung out there till around 1:30am then i went back to the dorm and he was out till 2:30. during these hours we went through 5 bars, I ate horse for the first time (I loved it, it's frickin' amazing but hecka expensive...) smoked some hookah, met a few of joshes friends and a couple new people then passed out. I had a train to catch at 8 am the following morning....
July 18th 2009 (the following morning):
I woke up on time with a massive hang over.... I managed to shower and josh called the taxi for me. at the train station i was feeling like crap but couldn't do anything to fix it... I had a 4 hour train journey ahead of me before getting to the shinjuku station in tokyo. So i ran to the bathroom before my train arrived and punched myself in the stomach until something came out. haha, it helped a lot!
:::long train ride and some connecting trains:::
I arrive at the station where I was meeting Kumiko and Derek. Then i finally meet up with them! we all went to get food, then Kumiko and her friend went back to the friends house for the rest of the day and Derek and I went to find our capsule hotel. we find it and the people working there don't speak any English but luckily Kumiko had written Derek and me a note saying what we wanted haha. after we drop off our bags in our capsule, we head out and do touristy stuff. its late so a lot of stuff was closed or empty. we end up walking all over Tokyo and taking subways left and right till around 2 am. We did the pretty much the same thing the following morning, not really that exciting to write about but it was still hella fun for us.
July 19th 2009 (following morning):
Derek and i wake up early and get breakfast at McDonalds...lol... Then we head out to find some specific places and sights. We traveled all over Tokyo till around 5 when we met back up with Kumiko and her friend. had dinner then said our goodbyes. Derek and Kumiko had to leave and The friend had to go home so now i was alone. I decided to just head to the airport just the way i was and try to find my way home. I make my way back to Tokyo station to grab my bags that i stuffed in a locker then catch the next train to Narita airport. Ok, so it's now around 7:40 at the airport and I'm expecting the worst possible outcome to occur. Me being there another 38 hours or more jut like Dubai because all the flights i had looked at and had my mom call about were really over booked :( I'm at the airport looking at all the flights for the rest of that day, and there was only one more going to north America and that was to Hawaii. I was in Terminal 1 so i rushed to Terminal 2 and tried to make that flight but it had left at 8pm and i was too late to try and make it. I spend some time in terminal 2 looking at flights from there out and around 10:33pm decide to head back to terminal 1... so I'm waiting for the shuttle bus and none come... then a girl walks up to me and in broken English we figure out that there are no more shuttles tonight and i need to get to terminal 1... she decided to walk me to terminal 1 so i wouldn't get lost. she was really cute too. Too bad she was only at terminal 2 to see her boyfriend. anyways, we talked the whole way to terminal 1 then finally say goodbye. i walk up the stairs to the top floor of the terminal for international flights and as I'm using the touchscreen computer inside to look up flights, all the lights and my computer shut off... the airport closed with me inside...so now I'm like shit shit shit cause i don't have ANY yen on me for a taxi. luckily the doors still worked from the inside so i walked out and walked down the road to the first floor, a good 15 min walk (my bags are really really heavy). i notice lights on still on the first floor so i head to them and walk in the door and the security guard who spoke no English stopped me and i tried asking for an ATM. well all in all we got to the conclusion that the ATM was shut down, but i could stay the night at the airport on a bench in the meeting area. That was cool. got a free nights sleep.. so i got about 6 hours sleep and woke up right when the terminal reopened. i was gonna take a shower but the public showers were over in terminal 2 and i dint' feel like going back over there. so the next 6 hours are of me fighting with ticketing agents and flight crews again trying to use my Air canada ticket from Narita to Vancouver BC on other airlines to other destinations. The same old same old stuff i've been doing the past 33 days. Anyways, I end up renting a cell phone for the day to talk to my mom to help find direct flights to the US, Mexico or Canada. i get a list together and then head out to those airlines. America Airlines would not let my pay the difference, nor would Korean Air but they ALMOST let me. I finally talk to a Delta girl and she looks at my air Canada ticket and says "yea you can use this where you trying to go?" and i said "Anywhere in North America is all I'm asking" then she said " ok well we have two wide open flights to Portland ... and ... Seattle... do any of those two work for you?" OMG i laugh and almost hugged the girl. I was like SEATTLE SEATTLE SEATTLE SEATTLE!!!!
flight departed at 4:15pm.
I landed in Seattle at 8:36am.

The End.

written by

Kennyboy12 on July 20, 2009 from Seattle, United States

from the travel blog: 2009 - Kenny Baldridge - "No Reservations"

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2009 - Kenny Baldridge - "No Reservations"

a travel blog by Kennyboy12

Tokyo, Japan

Sendai, Japan

Hachinohe, Japan

Day 27 - Day 26 Update & Day 27 - (7/14/2009)

Misawa, Japan

Tokyo, Japan

Day 33 - Fin - (7/20/2009)

Seattle, United States