Coming Home

I’ve been researching airplane tickets, and it looks like I’m going to be coming home May 16th now. I know this was a little longer than I originally planned, but like Odysseus I find myself not able to easily break away from Calypso’s grasp.

A friend from Gifu wanted to come visit Oita during Golden Week, and I agreed to stay around to help host him. And then the first cheap ticket I could find after Golden Week was for May 16th.

Obviously this extension makes for a long vacation, but I’m trying to use the time well by doing a lot of reading and writing that I know I won’t have time to do when I re-enter the work force. Although I’m not earning any money at the moment, I am managing to keep my expenses low. Shoko and I haven’t been eating out, I don’t have a car so I no longer pay gas money, and obviously there’s no rent.

…But here I am making excuses to all of you when I know full well none of you care about how long my vacation is, or what I do with it. The only people who care are my parents, and Shoko’s mother (who has apparently been expressing concerns about my work ethic.) But in the scheme of things I don’t think another couple weeks is going to make a difference.

At the moment I have no plans to return to Japan, so I’ve been looking for a one-way ticket home. The first time I came to Japan the JET program paid for my ticket out, and ever since then all my trips home have been on roundtrip tickets, so this is my first experience into the world of one-way tickets. It turns out they’re actually more expensive than roundtrip tickets. Sometimes significantly more expensive.

That’s counter-intuitive, but I assume there’s a good marketing reason for it. Maybe the airlines figure that roundtrip tickets are usually bought by families doing vacations on a budget, and might cancel their trip if they can’t get deals. Whereas one-way tickets are bought by people who are moving, and so are already committed to buying the ticket. Either that or businessmen who are transferred, and so the company pays for the ticket.

Okay, so I can’t get a cheap one-way ticket. Best thing to do is buy a roundtrip ticket and just not use the other half, right? Seems like a bit of a waste, but what can you do?

Now this is where I really get mad: if I don’t turn up for the return flight, the airline apparently charges me the price for a one way ticket, and sends me the bill for the difference. This is what I’ve been told by two different travel agents at least.

Can they do that? Do I have to pay money for not riding a plane back to Japan? Boy, those bastards really squeeze you everyway they can, don’t they. I’m no legal expert, but something about that arrangement just doesn’t feel right. If I refused to pay the difference and went to court, would I have any legal basis? Perhaps I could take a stand and fight for a man’s right not to use the second half of his return ticket. I could cite the tenth amendment to the constitution. It would be a lot of hard work of course, but in the end…

Or, I guess I could just pay the $200 difference. Damn you airlines.

Useless Wikipedia Fact
The Phantom is credited as being the first "costumed superhero", i.e. the first crimefighter to wear the skintight costume attributed to comic book superheroes.

Link of the Day
A long time ago I mentioned on this blog that one of my favorite old Japanese songs is "Blue Light Yokohama". I found a re-make of it on-line. I prefer the original 1960s version because I like the simple style that old music has, but this will give you an idea.