Take the Long Way Home

When we last left our insipid traveler, he was in southern Japan, under the impression that he would be travelling CONUS in just a few days. Well, I’m still headed CONUS, but taking a slightly longer route to get there, primarily via Doha, where there’s some engineering thing I need to resolve. For good or ill, I’ll be making my first ‘round-the-hemisphere* trip. It would be ‘round-the-world, but I’ll be staying at mostly the same latitude and never dipping south past the equator. That excursion is still on the To-do list, but isn’t currently on the itinerary.

“Isn’t currently on the itinerary.”

It’s all subject to change. This last modification came about over the past 36 hours. We’re working with a contractor in Qatar who adopted a half complete building from the client. The main reasons it was half complete are that the original design was half-assed and would result in a structure that would blow over in the first stiff breeze, and the original contractor was about half effective in meeting scope, schedule, and quality control. My task, since I’ve decided to accept it, is to look at various holes in the ground, and the concrete that fills them, and write a report as to what I observed. It’s not particularly rocket science, but it’s simple enough that a Senior Project Manager can do it. Plus, I’ve got in my possession a very rare and difficult to secure piece of government plastic that grants me, specifically, access to the location in question.

Ultimately, my valid Common Access Card and relative proximity were the deciding factors, which is why I’m sitting in the ticketing lobby of the Fukuoka International Airport waiting for the Asiana counter to staff up. It’s about 1400 now, and the flight‘s not until 1925, so I’ve got some time to waste, either on this side of the immigration folks or the other. After I write this, I’ll find a noodle shop and order something off the picture menu that looks like it doesn’t have too many tentacles, then secure a boarding pass to Korea.

Until this week, the furthest west I’d ever been was Oregon, and the furthest east was Afghanistan. Although my flight to Doha stops in Incheon, I hesitate in counting landing at an airport as actually being in the country. Someday, I’m sure the Company will send me to work in Viet Nam or India, so I’ll wait until then to say I’ve been around the world. This trip will have to maintain an asterisk. As for south of the equator, we have continuous work on Guam, so I may get one of those projects eventually. There was some talk this week as well about me covering for our project manager on Chuuk when he finally decides to take some PTO. For now, though, Fukuoka to Incheon to Doha to Frankfort to Chicago to Moline. Another five days and 12,000 miles and I’ll be home.

I’m just glad I had the hotel do my laundry yesterday.

In reflection, Japan certainly holds a top ten slot on the “Nice Place to Visit, But…” list. I’m sure the Japanese like it here, but there’s just too little space for my liking it over the long term. They’ve got ways of dealing with it, fine-tuned over the centuries. They queue very well, and aren’t large, loud or stinky. Public transportation can take you most anywhere and isn’t entirely a mystery. The taxis are propane powered, have doilies on the seats and are operated by uniformed, whited gloved drivers. Cities are nicely walkable. Did I mention that most every meal included tentacles? I’ve got serious issues with tentacles. However, the Kirin girl at the ball game last night, upon serving a fresh beer, bussed my empty cup. Nice.

We had a free evening yesterday in Hiroshima, and went to see the local major league team at their fairly new stadium. Sadly, the Carp got filleted by the Swallows. The 3-1 final score doesn’t tell the story of how hapless the Carp were, but I’ll try. Their only run was in the first, when a lucky bloop hit had enough energy to clear the left field wall. From then on, it was all Swallows, outhitting 10-3 and under-erroring 0-2. Towards the end, the Carp’s third pitcher was ejected for hitting two batters in a row. He was replaced by their 6’ 8” giant, who threw little but dirtballs. Overall, it had the look of Triple A ball, but with Double A pitching and Single A hitting, all in a major league stadium.

The crowd didn’t seem to care. Although quiet into the second inning, they overcame their cultural silence and became a bit boisterous, though it seemed that their cheers were entirely supportive, leaving the general derision to myself and my mates, not that anyone could understand our English “Use the good eye, Ump!”.

And the whistling. We had to do that, too, as the Japanese don’t seem to whistle. Anyway, during the seventh inning stretch, the fans sang the team song, and then launched balloons, this being perhaps the weirdest thing I’ve seen here. We’d been warned, so for three hundred yen, we bought a four pack of long, red Carp balloons. Each had a hard disk in the open end to assist in blowing the things up to almost a meter in length and 15 centimeters in diameter. This disk also worked to weigh the nozzle down so that the balloons continued to climb until they were completely deflated, at which time they’d flutter back to earth, all 10,000 of them. I fully expected the stadium floor to look like the parking lot of a shady truck stop, but the fans bussed the balloons that fell near them, and order was again secured.

I’m sure this won’t be my last trip here.