I graduated college on Monday, May 26 and I was supposed to travel on a flight from JFK leaving at 10am, so to be safe I would have needed to leave New Haven at 6am. Would have needed because in reality I went out until very late on Monday night, and after many happy farewells punctuated by a not insignificant amount of drinking, I decided to take a short nap. I woke up to my cell phone and my buzzer ringing at 7am without having finished packing the night before. I hurriedly threw my last things together, and as my father and I sped away from New Haven, I fell fast asleep.
I awoke briefly to see us sitting in standstill traffic on I-95 South.
I next awoke as we arrived at JFK, which was coincidentally at the exact moment my flight was to depart. As I had no chance of boarding it, I went to the JAL counter to plan my next move. After a brief discussion, I was booked on an 11am to Tokyo and then a transfer to Shanghai, set to arrive at 9:30pm Shanghai time. That left only 50 minutes to check in, get through security, eat breakfast and say bye to my dad. As you might imagine, I was particularly embarrassed by my inability to wake up so I apologized profusely as I left my dad on the unsafe side of the security gates.
My 12 hour flight, while uneventful, took 12 hours, as advertised. As I emerged from the plane, I noticed a placard that asked Mr. Samuel Strasser to please contact a representative from JAL airlines. I did just that, and found that the JAL rep in at JFK had forgotten to ask my father for a signature on his credit card receipt. I waited patiently for about 20 minutes as the rep tried to figure out what to do. I remained surprisingly calm, though I imagine that lack of sleep more than any real patience I possessed.
After settling my bill, the first surprise of the trip walked right up to me and, in broken English, asked if I was from America. I looked up and saw my good friend from school, Ravi, who, aside from speaking perfect English, also had just arrived in Tokyo and was also awaiting a transfer flight to his home in Singapore. He and I had about 3 overlapping hours to kill so we grabbed a beer and exchanged great stories from our last nights at college.
Eventually, we parted ways, boarding our respective flights and moving on to that odd time after college has ended but before the real world starts.
Another uneventful flight took me to Shanghai, where I grabbed a cab to the address of the hotel my friend had told me about. I tried so very hard to stay awake on the 50 minute ride, but, almost comically, slowly and steadily drifted into unconsciousness.
I awoke with a great sense of relief as I saw the hotel where my friends awaited me, at the end of my 28 hour day of travel. I strolled in to find a reception at which no English was spoken. Through a complex and ridiculous set of gestures and scribbles, I found the two rooms, went up, knocked, banged, yelled, but to no avail. The lack of a response from my friends left me dejected, and so I sat on the couch in the waiting room. As 11pm became 12, I started to worry a little. The motel we were staying in is a chain, and though I had seen their names as checked in guests, I wasn’t sure. I did nothing, though, since I didn’t know what else to do. While on the topic of Motel 168, I noticed an odd pattern of guests entering the lobby. Pairs of people, which I suppose might be called couples would enter the hotel, obviously drunk, get a room key, pay fo rit, and happily stumble into the elevator. later I learned the term “Love Hotel” where you can pay by the hour.
Anyway, as 12:30am rolled around, I decided my friends were either fast asleep from a long day of tourism or were out drinking. I went back to the desk and with an even more ridiculous set of gestures and noises managed to convince the hotel that I was in fact friends with my friends, and was let into their room. After a few minutes, I fell asleep on the floor.
At 3am the door slammed open, and Mike entered first. He started yelling “Strasser! Strasser!” as I heard Paul in the background making fun of him: “Mike, you’re hallucinating. Strasser isn’t here.” Eventually Paul was proven wrong. I was carted into Sam’s room where the 5 of us said our hellos, exchanged stories and soon fell asleep. I had arrived in Asia.
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