Land of the Rising Ire

So, bit of a long day today, which is normal for any travel day.  We got up at 5 a.m. it order to leave ourselves lots of time to get to the ferry terminal in Macao.  They've got a great system of ferries running between Zhuhai, Macao, and Hong Kong, including ones that stop right at the Hong Kong airport.  This is a great way to get to the airport as you can check your baggage in the Macao ferry terminal and it gets passed right along to your final destination.  Also, once you're in Hong Kong you have a separate set of check-in desks and security stations only accessed by other ferry passengers, which keeps the lines down.

We had a smooth flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo, and despite losing an hour in to the capricious gods of the time zones we still had plenty of day left.  If only we'd got to do something with it.

We're here in Tokyo with a tour group, but the tour doesn't really start until tomorrow morning; we were on our own to get to the hotel and get ourselves situated.  We grabbed a shuttle to the hotel... and they had no record of us.  We spent a great deal of time trying to sort that out, including a call to the tour office which went unanswered.  If, at this point, you're starting to think that we'd been scammed then you and I have something in common.  It was pure fortune that Annie and Euphy's discussions in Cantonese caught the attention of another Chinese-Canadian member of our group who was in the same predicament.  He and his wife have been travelling around Asia for several weeks now as part of one tour group or another, and this was the third time they'd found themselves being directed to the wrong hotel.  Fool me once...

In short, we determined which hotel we were meant to be at and made our way there, but it was about 7 p.m. by the time we got checked into our room.  So much for our afternoon in Narita.  We're certain now that we're in the right place since we were able to meet up with our tour guide who Euphy prevented me from beating to death.  I desperately needed to kick someone's head out from between their ears, and he was RIGHT THERE!  Something about "it's not his fault" was apparently supposed to placate me.  Justice, my friends, has gone un-served.

I'm happy to report that a hot shower and some really, really good sushi have substantially improved my mood.  While I'm not convinced that someone shouldn't be thrashed for what I perceive as trying to pull a fast one on us, I'm resigned to the fact that we're here now, and I may as well make the most of the situation.  As it was a travel day I really didn't take any photos, but I'm now able to post them here, so look for a more thorough documentation of the days to come.  Right now though, I think it's time for bed.  Good night my friends.