F Luck

It has been absolutely mad. A recap of the last 72 hours:

Moved out. Moved everything out. (It's amazing the amount of crap you (I) accumulate over just 2 years.)

Packing for South America and US. (It's just that bit trickier packing for both hot and cold climates. And the fact that I'm going away for 2.5 months all up.)

Arranged to meet up - and be (conveniently) hosted by - friends in São Paulo, Santos, Curitiba, Recife, Rio, Asuncion, Buenos Aires, Bogota. (See, this is why you have international friends. Lol.)

Had a major rethink about the working draft of my speech for Brasil, almost entirely. (I am scrapping the whole SEA thing completely; going to focus on Singapore, despite - and almost in defiance to - the sound of alarm bells handcuffs clicking over my wrists rings in my head, as I shudder at the imagery of me walking under close watch towards an interrogation room at Changi Airport upon touchdown.

Was informed by the Brasilian consulate in Sydney that they would NOT be able to process my visa in time. Panic.

Deliberating on my 2 so-called options: stay longer (than the original overnight transit) in Narita and get the consulate there to help with the visa. I even got dear S in Singapore, who speaks fluent Japanese, to talk to them explaining my (urgent) situation. They are not helpful. OR, the terribly imaginative idea of postponing arrival in São Paulo til a recommended date that falls after the conference.

It does not look good.

Frantic emails; to conference organisers, embassies and friends alike. Serious thoughts about how to deliver my speech through video conference.

Aaron, my trustee travel consultant is seriously worried for me.

Breakthrough in NY! In the morning on the eve of my supposed flight, Consulado do Brasil says they can do me a visa in 2 days! "1 day for application, 1 day for pick-up." Wooot!!

Aaron frantically tries to get the JAL HQ in Tokyo to let me stop over in NY. Flights are packed. Chances are grim.

Meanwhile, I suddenly realise - fuck! I'd totally forgotten about fixing up my air pass for the intra-continental travel in South America! Egad. Frantic calls.

Aaron gets back to me. I got myself a stopover - with the prerequisite 2 working days! Aaron warns that it may not be enough time to process a visa, despite with the consular division says, but my options are limited because all other flights - arriving in time for the conference anyway - are full.

I take the chance.

Air pass guy gets back with a tentative itinerary. Very efficient. But, it's almost 4pm, and I'd completely forgotten (again) about the leg from Rio - my last stop in South America - to São Paulo where I take my flight back to Sydney. Ugh! More crazy phone calls, amid whizzing around in the car with J to do last minute moving-house stuff.

In the final business hours before my flight: Confirm South American itinerary; pick up SYD-TOK-NY-SP ticket; pick up the South American air pass itself; pick up prepaid phone kit to transfer my account (of sorts) so I don't get the huge obligatory monthly charge while I'm away; finish my business with the old house (oh, the memories).

Air pass guy tells me I MUST get vaccination for yellow fever (I thought he was pulling a pun at first). Before leaving. Cripes.

Whiz around some more, to the clinic. Doctor Tan, the only one licensed to administer the vaccine, has left the building! Receptionist, ever sympathetic to my desperate situation, makes more calls for me. After 15 excruciating minutes - "you can get the vaccination done at the medical centre at the airport. They open at 8am, so you have time before your 10:15 flight." Woot!

The rest of the night was sorting out last-minute housekeeping I'd neglected, and packing proper for the trip.

In the morning: I am told, as I check-in my bags, that I get to get out of Narita while on transit - and stay at a "transit hotel"! Dig out my big coat from my luggage, right there and then in front of the check-in counter - who cares! (Not me, evidently)

Frantic calls (we're really developing a theme here) to another friend S in NY, at the medical centre, while waiting to get my shot. (Turns out to be four of them - yellow fever, tetanus, Hep A, Typhoid.) So I may have a place to stay in NY. Not confirmed. S is helping me ask around his friends for charity shelter too.

The shots - and a bunch of sleeping pills, at my behest - come up to $217. This is an expensive exercise.

Crap. I finish with the medical centre right smack at 9:45am - exactly boarding time. No time to email Japanese friend in Tokyo, who I met at the World Youth Congress in Scotland.

Frantic SMSes to (another) J, in the UK, who has access to the WYC delegate database, to email her on my behalf to ask if she'd like dinner, and hang out some in Tokyo. Didn't get a reply from J, so I have no idea how that went.

And now, here I am on JL722, sitting in my nice 60C aisle seat, amazed at the course of the last 72 hours. (On a random, the stewardesses here are so nice!)

I am freakin' lucky.
(Even if I still have my speech to stress about work on.)

***
Update: Now posting this from Nikko Narita Hotel - where I discovered I have a free night's stay because of my overnight transit! Tomorrow, before zipping off to NY, I will be traipsing around Tokyo city. Don't get too green.