Chad’s excellent spring 2025 adventure

[chadbag]

Getting this started so maybe I can solicit info or ideas before our trip. 
 

We bought tickets about 4 weeks ago for a late spring trip (May/June timeframe).   Id been watching prices and thought it was a good price (and it was) but if I’d waited a couple weeks I could have saved about $150 per person for more direct routes that were a little shorter (on a different airline).  We got good economy tickets on Korean Air.  It means we fly into KIX via ICN via LAX (Airbus A380 — will be my first time on the giant).  These are “full service” economy tickets meaning everyone gets 2 checked luggage, etc.   I’ve not been through Incheon on about 14-15 years.   Our first several trips were always through ICN as we always used Delta points and Delta didn’t fly to Japan at the time so we always got tickets on KAL.  Eventually Delta opened up new routes to Japan but we still had one last trip via KAL and ICN.  The last time we did was when my daughter was 18 months old (she’s now almost 17).   On the way we missed our flight to LAX as we sat in the check-in line forever — it was glacially slow — and our turn came up 5-10 minutes before the flight closed.  The guy rushed to get us checked-in and all the international business taken care of before the flight to LAX closed (at the time it was 30 min before the flight).  He didn’t quite make it.  The guy felt pity on us and spent the next hour trying to re-route us.  He was finally able to on a Delta flight to Honolulu and then connect a flight to KIX.   So we left a few hours later and spent a few hours layover in Hawaii and then landed in Osaka about 20 min before the flight from Korea we should have been on landed.   And we didn’t have to pay any additional fees to get there earlier.  (Even though we sat in the check-in line a long time we technically were a little late to the airport due to abnormal traffic).   We went home through Korea however on our original booking.  That was our last trip through Korea.  I’m wondering what has changed.  
 

Anyway, this is mostly a “visit family” trip and local stuff in Kansai or day or overnight trips in the area.   But we will go to Tokyo for a few days and then fly to Hokkaido and spend a few days there, including a visit with my son who is there.   He is in Otaru now but will probably be elsewhere by the time we get there.  
 

I’ll have to go finish uploading photos from our last trip 🤣

 

 

[Kingmeow]

Awesome!  Another trip to vicariously live through even though we were there a month+ ago.  🤣  We already miss Japan.  Post pictures as you go!