Typhoon Fitow: An Escape from Tokyo, An Early Morning in Paris

My visit to the Narita Air Mall was not meant to be. When I checked in for the next leg of my flight, I was informed that the plane would be departing over two hours early to avoid the impending landfall of Typhoon Fitow. My first flight had almost been diverted to another airport because of the weather, but had managed to land despite the heavy rain and wind. A few hours later, all of the airlines at Narita were either canceling or expediting their flights. I had time to get something to eat and buy some snacks for the plane before it was time to head through security and passport control.

Our takeoff was certainly one of the most unique I have ever experienced. I took the above photo from my window before we left the gate – visibility was almost zero. During our taxi, water was literally pouring off the wings of the plane and the wheels were creating a wake of water on the runway. You could certainly feel the pull, much like when you are in a car driving through standing water. The pilot was spot on when he announced the first hour of the flight would be rough, but that things would eventually smooth out.

The result of my early flight was that we landed at Charles DeGaulle in Paris at around 3:30 in the morning. My flight to Edinburgh did not leave until 7:20 a.m. Previously, I had been looking forward to a cafe au lait and some brioche during the layover. However, at that hour, I was not feeling much esprit and absolutely nothing was open in the airport. There was only one soda machine near security, and I only had yen and dollars – no euro. So I sat and zoned out to my iPod, read and slept a little.

Finally, at six, a coffee cart opened near my gate and after getting a piping hot cafe mocha (no brioche :( ), I talked to a fellow Tokyo passenger who was also waiting on the Edinburgh flight. He was a graduate student in Scotland who had been in Tokyo working on his thesis, a human geography study of public parks in Japan. We managed, in spite of the early hour, to have a pretty interesting conversation about human geography and its relation to linguistics (how I could recall and provide a detailed explanation of Sapir-Whorf, including specific cultural examples before sunrise is still a mystery – maybe I should apply a jetlag technique before my thesis defense). It was a good way to pass the time, and very cool hearing about another student’s project and quite a bit about the university system in Scotland.