2 posts tagged “japan”

As a cultural introduction, there are several sacred things in Japan.  One, of the most paramount importance, is the railway operators.  These are the descendants of the Gods that created Japan, and are infallible.  Rigorous training, punctuality to the second and clean white gloves are their attributes.

With these gloves, there is a verbose and ritualistic pointing routine.  I believe it is them summoning the spirit of their conductor ancestors to guide the train using divine wind, and always arrive at the next station on time.  I'd love to get a video of this ritual, but I am unable to find any so I'm forced to believe that you can't capture it on film.  Perhaps if you do, the Gods destroy your camera.  I have a new camera, so I don't want to test fate.

Now that you understand the secret society of train conductors, I can begin my story.

I was scheduled to arrive in Tokyo on Monday morning at some point, so on Sunday my mother-in-law accompanied me to the local station to buy tickets.  This would ensure I take the most efficient route and wait for the least amount of time.

The station attendant arranges schedule, and deftly delivers the tickets with instructions on when and where to board.  I am to take the 8:38 local express train to Kyoto Station, and arrive at 9:00am to transfer to the 9:16 Nozomi 4 N700 Shinkansen.

Fantastic.

Monday morning, over coffee, my mother in law informs me that it seems there is a local train that arrives at our station at 8:37 and I should be careful to not get on that one.  That would put me in Kyoto around 9:20, too late to get on the Shinkansen.

When arriving at our local station, I see on the arrivals board the local train at 8:37 and another local train at 8:57.  There is no express.

I wait to see if anybody on the platform is going to wait for the next non-existent express, which they don't.  I walk back up to the counter and fortunately see the same guy.  In my poor attempts at learning the Japanese language, I never once thought I'd have to explain that I wasn't able to board a non-existent train and I needed to realign my entire trip.

However, through gesticulation and kid-words (でんしゃ　ないね） I got the message across.  I explained to him that the 8:38 train is only for the weekend, and when he planned my trip he was looking at the weekend local train schedule and weekday Shinkansen schedule.

The reeling back and flushed face was enough to tell me that he understood the message, and his error.

While he apologized profusely, he didn't commit seppuku. 

I feel I was misled, but I got my tickets and made it to Tokyo very quickly and efficiently.

For those in the know, you may know I'm in Japan.  For those not in that category, now you know.  Now that we've got that out of the way, I'd like to write about my trip here.

To begin, a context enlightening preamble.  My mother-in-law, who is awesome, stays with us for extended periods of time (months in a row) and it is a huge help.  She's fantastic to have around the house, and the kids love her.  Our trip to Japan coincides with a return visit for her, so we'll all be catching the same flight back to the US.  That will make the 15 hours of travel easier. Having another adult to man the kids is very good thing.

She asks me to book her flight, and I happily oblige.  I create the itinerary on United.com and get the thumbs up, and then attempt to buy it.  This works fine, up to the payment page when it doesn't allow me to enter a Japanese billing address.  There isn't clear messaging on this site, but after a couple clicks I figure out that I have to go to United Japan's website.

Excellent, I think, as I login and pull up her saved itinerary.  I click through to purchase it, and it simply errors out with some helpful messaging you might find on a 404 Not Found page (such as updating bookmarks).  I'm assuming this is because their programmers just don't care about their job, because handling errors is generally simple.

I recreate the itinerary, or so I thought.  I picked the wrong flight (fortunately for us, on her return to Japan) that had her out far too early to catch the SFO connection.

I figure that a quick call to United to explain the situation, and also to request the bassinet available to us, will get everything in order.

This is where United gets even worse.

First, the wretched and unhelpful woman on the phone apparently put the request for the bassinet in a drawer, then set the desk on fire.  Nobody had any idea what so ever about a bassinet request or anything else to assist us.  Fantastic.  Fortunately, the flight attendants (well, the Japanese) were very helpful in getting us situated.  On the flight, they bumped a woman at the bulkhead to business and setup my wife and baby there with the bassinet.  I'm very happy about this, which helped alleviate the frustration about the phone jockey.

The frustration which was hugely amplified by her unapologetic lack of care about the United.com dying on purchasing, and my subsequent struggles trying to change the flight to the intended purchase.  She simply informed me that it would be around $250 (I think $282, I wasn't really paying attention to the number) to change the ticket.  I told her that was ridiculous, as I could buy a round-trip ticket just for that leg for much cheaper (since I do the PDX-SFO flight on occasion, I know that I can buy it for $150 on sale and $200 regularly.)

Her response: If you do that, you cannot continue your trip unless you board the original flight.

Go United!  This is how you keep customers, fo' sure!  I think I'll be recommending the NWA direct PDX to NRT flight, since it is around the same price (for PDX to KIX).

This trip has also exposed me to the privilege of watching two other stewardflight attendants snap angrily at passengers.  One instance was because the woman put discarded chewing gum in the bottom of a plastic cup.  Seriously.

Airlines aren't losing money because of the economy, or security concerns.  They're losing money because they treat their passengers like cattle.  A smile and friendly service can make any seat feel like business class.

I don't think I'll be flying United anymore, perhaps a time or two more to use up my miles.