Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Show 552 Tuesday 6 November



The latest version of this transcript has been moved here: 
http://www.thedailyenglishshow.com/show/552-welcome-back-to-japan-are-you-smuggling-turtles/


























Back to Japan 2007
Day 11: Taipei to Hokkaido


In Taipei transit I did editing and uploading.

Our flight left on time and everything went smoothly.

They only downer was the movie. Something about transformers. It was lame but I watched it anyway.

The cameraman was fascinated by the fact that there were two kinds of toothpicks. Toothpick. Brushpicks. Wow.

Check this out, our seats were right at the front of the plane. Well at the front of economy class. These are totally the best seats. I was really happy about sitting here.

The wing was firmly attached to the plane.

And this is somewhere in Hokkaido, I think. I have no idea where.

After 6 months away I was fantasizing that someone might care that we were back. Maybe there’d be a bit of a red carpet ... some paparazzi.

But no, instead, after we picked up our bags we were swarmed by immigration officers and whisked away into a small room where they told us they suspected we were smuggling something and they searched and questioned us. Great.
I was kind of shocked because I’m the last person who would ever do that. I’m always lecturing people on how you shouldn’t take even one apple into New Zealand because it’s a really important rule blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, pretty soon after they started rifling through our dirty socks and underwear I think it was pretty obvious that we didn’t have any grenades, turtles or fake Louis Vuitton bags. And it wasn’t as bad as in Vancouver because they were actually quite nice to us.

Eventually, they apologized for taking up our time and we could leave the airport.

The scenery in Hokkaido is nice. It looks different with no snow.

I felt happy about coming back to the things I like about Japan and sad about the things I don’t like. And just tired from traveling.

It took a few hours to drive home from the airport.



notes

downer n. (informal) something dispiriting or depressing

lame adj. (informal) "stupid, unoriginal or lifeless" - from the Urban Dictionary

Something about transformers.
I looked it up, the movie was called Transformers.

links

New Chitose Airport
New Chitose Airport (Wikipedia)