The Five-Step Plan

Well, I'm glad that's over with.

Here's how it went getting off the plane:

1. Disembark
2. Get fingerprinted
3. Get felt up (actually just a normal pat-down)
4. Get checked baggage
5. Start failing

I'm not kidding. I went to pull money from my bank account using my ATM card, only to find that the ATM machines here won't do it. And the cash I have with me consists of $10 American. And to get to the town of Kyoto - I'm currently sitting on an artificial island about ten miles from where I want to be, if all is as I think it is - I need 3,700円, which comes out to about $35, depending on the exchange rate that day.

So an hour of wandering around with 130 pounds of luggage later, I gained a luggage cart, solicited help from about ten different people, only two of which were not Japanese, and managed to find one ATM upstairs that I can use my ATM card at. I'm told there's a department store in town that has a bank of ATMs on the seventh floor that will be very useful for me. I can't remember the name of the place, though.

In the end, I pulled $300 from my savings account. I couldn't pull out any more, or I would've tried to get more. The shuttle and hotel together will be less than $100, so I should be okay for now. Apparently ATM is not the way to go here, in spite of the fact that cash is apparently so popular.

I've got a few more minutes to kill, so I guess I'll take a couple pictures now that I'm on the ground. I've got roughly 120 pictures of the clouds, I think. Not much to do on the plane and the clouds were beautiful, especially while we were landing and I wasn't allowed to use my camera. Oh, and the Wi-Fi here appears to be MAC-limited, so I can't get online.

In the end, it ended up being okay. Phew.

08-03-26 0231WST 1730JST - ウィル