30 and 31 August
Last Updated:20/11/04
We flew from Sapporo's Chitose airport to Kansai on Monday 30th August, and we were very lucky. A typhoon was heading up Japan, and was nearing the Kansai/Osaka region around the time we got to Chitose airport. Having been living in Japan for over a year now, I'm quite used to typhoons - at least, how the typhoons are when they hit Fukui. At any rate, the word "typhoon" doesn't instill the overwhelming feeling of fear!
Anyway, this typhoon threatened to cause our flight to divert to Tokyo. If you know Japan at all, you'll know that Tokyo and Osaka are actually quite far apart, especially if all shinkansen (bullet trains), other trains and flights between the two are cancelled. And Mum's flight home was leaving on the 31st.
Before we boarded the flight we were told it probably would divert, but as we
approached our destination our pilot took the decision to fly through the edge
of the typhoon and land at Kansai airport - a rather bumpy, quite scary
flight. In the past 5 years I've been on over 50 flights (yes, I've
counted!), and whereas this wasn't the most bumpy, it was definitely the most unsettling
- the sky outside being very, very dark!
Our flight was one of the last ones to land at Kansai before the typhoon (which was much stronger than the ones I'd experienced in Fukui). We went up to the top floor for dinner - to the suspended Jet Stream restaurant, but it became a little too bumpy as the winds picked up, so we retreated to the safety of the second floor for drinks and dessert. Once we were happily pickled, we headed off to explore the airport, and grin at all the poor people who were stranded! (We were staying the night at Hotel Nikko - the only hotel on the Kansai Airport island).
Mum's flight left more-or-less on time the next day - the typhoon being well on
it's way to Hokkaido!
It was great to spend some time with Mum, and we really did have a fantastic holiday. I'm now ready to go back to Fukui, and give my liver a bit of a rest, and eat nothing but salads for a week!
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