(February 25)
Woke up at 7am, got breakfast and met Dave and Suresh in the lobby and headed off for the airport. Took the subway to Kyoto Station and then bought tickets for the Kansai Airport Express train. Just missed the 9:16am train so had to wait for the 9:46am train. This made Suresh’s connection pretty tight, but Dave and I had plenty of time.
I gave the checkin the wrong e-ticket receipt, so they almost checked me in for the TPE-SFO flight and then were puzzling over what was up with that. And because they were Japanese, they were going to try to figure it out instead of asking me. Finally they asked if I had another e-ticket receipt and finally I recognized the mistake. That all sorted out, and I was on the way.
Back in Taipei took the bus back home and my cat was happy to see me. He was out of dry food though, so had to go pick up a bag while out getting my dinner. Had dinner, repacked and showered and back to the bus to the airport. Coincidentally got the same bus driver as I had coming in. He must have been surprised to see me back so soon.
EVA doesn’t have a special check-in line for Deluxe Class and I don’t have mileage status yet, but they do have a Diner’s Club checkin line, so I was able to use that and skip the long wait. There was a problem checking in because the Kansai Airport checkin had added a bag to that record and hadn’t cleared it out, so I had to explain the whole mixup again and eventually it was sorted out.
Deluxe Class turns out to be pretty much just right. Seats are almost as big as business class, not quite as much legroom, but enough that even I could stretch way out, and the seat reclined pretty far back. All in all, it’s the right amount of room I need for the right price. Service was pretty good, and food wasn’t as fancy as business class but plenty good enough. I was even able to sleep most of the way.
Getting in at SFO, there was no wait at all in the Citizen/Resident immigration line, quite a change from coming in in the morning where there’s a lot of flights all arriving at once. But this meant I had to actually wait for bags to come. Customs check was also pretty quick.
Hertz gave me a GPS unit in my car this time. Kinda fun to play with. Last time I got one was in Denver and the stupid thing sent me on an unfinished freeway that ended in the middle of nowhere. Anyhow, for kicks I entered in my Santa Clara address and it went pretty much the route I would have taken except for my Hichborn shortcut.
Finally was able to get to sleep at around 10:30.
Now spending the next couple of days trying to adjust to the jet lag.