Escape from New York

Oh man, what a day...
I have no idea how long I have been up, but in the last 24 hours I've gotten very few hours of sleep.

Anyway, I'm in Narita International Airport waiting for my connecting flight to Fukuoka. I had a lot of close calls though, and almost didn't make it.

It all started yesterday (actually 2 days ago since it's 4pm wednesday here)...
I had completed just about everything that I needed to do, all my errands, packing, mental preparation and what not. After all that all that was left to do was wait...

Unfortunately, that mix of nervousness and excitement led to me being very impatient and increased things on the nervousness. Early that morning I had received an e-mail asking me if I would like to do early check in. I thought that I should just wait since it probably only benefits people who don't have to check in anything, but at this point in time I thought I would give it a try anyway.

So, I log on and there's a problem...
My e-ticket isn't matching up.

I call United and they tell me that my flight was canceled and they have to reroute me from JFK to Newark. When I asked why this happened, they explained that it was a problem with the crew, in other words not enough people showed up to work.

A WTF moment if I ever did see one.

So, of course this inconvenienced me. I had planned to take the subway/airtrain to the airport and it would've cost me about $5.

To go to Jersey takes a little more effort, so I ended up reserving a super shuttle.

So my time arrives. My flight was leaving at 7:29am, but I have super shuttle come at 2:30 just in case. I get to the airport around 3:30, but the counters don't open until 4:30. Finally, they open and I got to the counter and put my info in...

Nothing works...
"Um, I need some help, nothing's working..." I said to a nearby attendant.
"Where are you flying to?"
"Chicago."
"All morning flights to Chicago were canceled"

I was about to break upon hearing this news...
I called united immediately.
Turns out that the pilots didn't show up this time, and the guy on the phone that there was one more chance for me to get to Chicago to get all my flights, but I had to catch a 7:00am flight at LaGuardia.

It was 5am, and I had to check in by 6am...

I rushed out, and luckily I met some people in the same predicament who shared cab from me. I was also grateful for crazy ny/nj cab drivers, because he got us there in 30min.

Finally, I made it.

Since that point there were no problems, and I'm in Tokyo now.

But what really pissed me off about this whole situation is that didn't warn me both times my flight was canceled...I was signed up and everything and I even complained about it after the first cancellation.

Ugh...

Though, my flight was really long and my neck hurts, but that's almost without saying...

Anyway, I'm kinda tired now. I'll update when I get to Fukuoka.