Once upon a time we had grand plans to visit our friends stationed in Alaska. "It's easy to get on a Space Available flight to Alaska" we heard over and over. So Keenan blocked off a couple weeks of tentative vacation time so we could be flexible on our dates. Lucky for us right around that time there was a Space-A* flight heading from Misawa to Alaska, with 50-something seats tentatively available. Perfect! We packed our bags, let our friends know we'd be our way in a couple days, reserved a rental car, made hotel reservations for a night or 2, etc. Well, it didn't quite all work out. When we went to roll call for the flight, they announced that instead of 50-something available seats there would be ZERO! Ahhh! So disappointing!
So our options were to forget the idea or search for another route. Yokota AB in Tokyo also has Space A flights to Alaska sometimes and they had one on their upcoming flight list that was happening in 2 days. Also with 50-something seats available. We decided to get on the train the next morning and head to Tokyo. I called them and they said there shouldn't be any changes to that flight. Obviously, still not a guarantee.
Off to Tokyo we went, Alaska rental car and hotel reservations revised. We went down to spend a day in the city and a night at Yokota AB before the morning flight roll call.
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| Storing our luggage at the train station. So convenient! |
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| Tokyo Station. |
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| Tokyo Station. |
From Tokyo Station we walked over to the Imperial Palace. I wanted to see the actual palace. On a previous trip we'd visited the Imperial Palace East Gardens, but from there you don't see the palace. I knew we couldn't get very close...I just wanted a glimpse. Well, that didn't quite go as planned...the palace was under construction and covered in scaffolding.
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| Nijubashi Bridge with the covered palace in the background. |
Having not fulfilled my desire to see the palace, we headed off to Shibuya, a neighborhood in Tokyo famous for a street crossing right outside the train station. It's pretty crazy. All traffic stops and pedestrians are allowed to cross in all directions. It's one of the busiest intersections in the world! By this time we were already tired of walking in the heat and humidity and were ready to find a happy hour spot. I know, by our standards we hadn't even walked far or adventured much. It was hot!
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| Shibuya Crossing. |
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| Random sparkly stairs. |
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| Happy Hour spot #1. |
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| Happy Hour spot #2. |
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| Dinner spot: ChaoThai on 2F. This spice level was a bit more than we were used to from the Thai place in Misawa...but sooo good! |
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| Pad Kee Mao. |
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| Whatever seafood thing Keenan ordered. |
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| Shibuya Crossing in the evening. |
We retrieved our luggage and took the train to Yokota AB (Fussa Station).
The next morning we went to the passenger terminal for roll call. Well, things didn't quite work out once again. The 50-something seats turned into 2 seats! And we were not the 2 highest priority people on the list. Boooo! Sad, tired and frustrated we headed back to Misawa. Nothing like spending almost $1,000 going to Tokyo for a day and a half to try getting to Alaska for free...it's a little funny now, but at the time definitely was not.
"I guess our visit to the land of the midnight sun was not meant to be...I'm sure it didn't happen for a reason, probably would have been mauled by a bear, charged by a moose or capsized by a whale...or something along those lines...still sad though" -Me
*For those that don't know...Space Available or Space A flights are a perk (when it works out) available to military members. When military flights have empty seats they are released to be filled. The available seats are given out based on a system of several categories, but if you are lucky enough to get one of these seats the flights are basically free. Disadvantages are that flights can change at any moment, there's no guarantee that you'll get a seat to where you want to go and once you get somewhere there's no guaranteed flight back so you must be prepared to pay for commercial flights if needed.
Up next: Lake Towada Fireworks Festival 2014
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