Sunday, March 11, 2007

Accompanying Apollo 5: from New Zealand to Japan and home


To return to actuality, however, it was by plane and not by stepping stones that we next accompanied Apollo. True to his word, Rhys delivered us to the airport in good time and waved us off on what was to be the last leg of our journey, via Auckland and Japan. Alas, this final place of call proved a serious disappointment. Once more we were in the terrain of impaired communication, and this time it was rendered even more frustrating by the Japanese refusal to admit they have not understood. Our children had advised us to stay at an airport hotel as they had done a couple of years before, and to use the free shuttle for forays into Narita, where there were temples and gardens and markets galore. Alas, we found the shuttle ran only every four hours (twice a day) so that meant leaving early and spending four hours downtown before returning. There was also a public bus that started from the hotel, visited all six airport hotels, and then did a brief tour of the town. This left every hour on the hour and took an hour, so it seemed quite convenient. But it, like everything else, was very costly, and we had already spent nearly $30 on a frugal breakfast when Alan set off on the shuttle for a four-hour reconnoiter. Consequently I paid a fare on the public bus to be set down at a supermarket, where I bought quantities of food--bread, meat, cheese, fruit--for picnics in our room. This was still more expensive than it would have been in any other country, but $40 bought enough for 2 lunches and 2 suppers each.
Meanwhile, back at the hotel, the only entertainment in English was CNN, which showed a continuum of the Bush debacle, and my electronic Sudoku game (which had already saved my sanity during the endless trips on Indian roads). Even Alan agreed that such “news” as TV offered was unbearable, so we decided to try to change our flight home to an earlier one.
We were fortunate in this. Once I’d managed the long distance phone system I found myself talking to an Air Canada agent in English and learned there was space on a trans-Pacific flight to Vancouver that left 48 hours earlier than the one we had booked.
Hurrah! We rebooked our e-ticket accordingly, and though there was no way we could get a “hard” copy, she assured us that we were now in the system to fly the next day.
Since Alan had much enjoyed the visit to the temple, we set out next morning to take the public bus together. The hotel staff assured me this bus would stop at the temple, as the timetable said it would, and after an hour there we would be able to get the next bus returning at the same bus-stop. At least as I asked the questions, they nodded and bowed sagely in response, so I assumed I was being given assurance. Alas, none of the staff I spoke to prepared us for a bus-driver who spoke no English, understood no English, and was not prepared to stop anywhere downtown except the station. Despite our pressing of the bell, and our frantic jumping up and down, he drove placidly on and returned us to our hotel an hour after we had left it, $8 poorer with nothing but a tour of other hotels to remember. Thank goodness we were leaving that afternoon. I forbore from showing the staff how I felt about getting no refund for the two-night cancellation; this was evidently an aggressively profit-seeking commerce we were currently engaged with. We packed up and set out for the airport grimly grateful the ordeal of being bowed to was over.
I’m sure readers will anticipate what happened next. None of the check-in staff would believe we were booked on the flight that left that day, insisting we ought to have a printed ticket, without which we could not be permitted to board the Air Canada flight. Ninety minutes we spent locked in the attempt to make them understand the process by which we had made the change. Finally, one of these handmaidens understood my demand to see her boss and a man (of course) appeared out of nowhere blandly asking what was the problem. When he shook his head and reiterated “no ticket, no flight” I finally lost it. I grabbed his hand, forced his finger to locate the Air Canada 1 800 # on the top of the original e-ticket, thrust the desk-top phone into his free hand, and began to dial the number. “Ah so!” He made the call. Within seconds the scene had changed to one of universal and interminable bowing. Our bags were put into priority loading, we were whisked to the gate, and an attendant hostess showed me into a bulkhead seat—all without any move on my part to achieve such relative comfort.
Alan took a few pictures of the temple, its priest, and its gardens, as seen below.



I suppose the lesson of all this is that one should avoid travelling to or in any country without having at least a smattering of its language. Or without a companion already versed in the customs and idioms of that country. For us, India and Japan were the two exotic places where expectations and communication had failed us.
On the other hand, Europe, Australia and New Zealand all offered us the comfort of the familiar, in speech as well as in customs, and at our age the familiar is more to be sought after than the strange, more than much-fine gold.
Of course, none of this matters to Apollo, our golden god in whose company we had set out. He remains poised above his golden chariot, loftily in command. Nor does he have a place he calls home to which he returns thankfully, however fleetingly, at the end of his circuit. But for us the platitudes are all true. There is no place like it, and nothing rewards the traveller more than achieving it again. It’s the place we somehow don’t have to deserve, the place where when we have to go, they have to take us in. The place from which we venture forth again when the golden glow lures us onward and upward.


the other home place where when we have to go, they have to take us in



Now, where shall we go next?

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