For our little travel group in early September 2019, we landed in Japan on Friday, spent a night in Kawaguchiko plus the Saturday. And then spent another day in Tokyo on Sunday before we were supposed to catch a plane to Okinawa on Monday.
The problem: In the Night from Sunday to Monday, there was a typhoon happening. So we not only had to cut our night out in Shibuya short, because our accommodation was in the north of Sumida (within throwing distance of the Arakawa river). Because we feared we could be stuck there, if the train service should be stopped. Also since we did not know whether the subway would also be stopped in the event of a typhoon.
What really fucked us up was the slow resumption of train service. Our first available train to Haneda didn't leave until just before 9:30 a.m. We actually wanted to leave just after 8 a.m. And commuter traffic is bad enough anyway. But when the crowds are already gathering and squeezing into the first train, we f*cked-up gaijins with our big suitcases come too. So began our almost 3-hour odyssey across Tokyo towards Haneda Airport. What we didn't know yet: The typhoon must have been powerful enough to really disrupt flight operations there too. Almost without exception, ALL flights until late afternoon were CANCELED. Including ours.
So we just spent the rest of the day at the airport, hoping that the airline would somehow book us onto another flight to Naha. Spoiler alert: We didn't. In vain, because we were put off until the next day. Hundreds of other non-Japanese people were stuck in Haneda as well. The hotels around the airport were booked up pretty quickly, even the capsule ones. Still hoping to be able to get something straight away early in the morning, we (and, as mentioned, hundreds of other unfortunate people without a proper bed) had no choice but to spend the night in the entrance area of ​​the terminal. Of course, you could forget about actually sleeping unless you were completely hardened.
Luckily, our group was split up into the first two consecutive flights. Unfortunately, we still lost almost a whole day that we would otherwise have spent in Naha.
TL;DR. Typhoon fucked up our travel itinerary.
by Doc_Chopper