Japan — The Great Diversion

The plan was simple: fly Boston to Tokyo, spend ten days exploring Japan. The reality was anything but.

My Cathay Pacific flight from Boston to Hong Kong got diverted to Tokyo Haneda — exactly where I was trying to go in the first place. I sat on the plane at HND for 90 minutes with the door open and the jet bridge connected. They let a new crew board, but they wouldn't let me off. When we finally pushed back from HND and landed in Hong Kong four hours later, I watched from Gate 3 as my connecting flight to Tokyo pushed back from Gate 2. The only 24-hour food option at HKG was McDonald's. The only place that wouldn't accept my airline meal vouchers was McDonald's.

Twenty-one hours after leaving Boston, I was in a hotel room in Hong Kong wondering how everything had gone so sideways. The next night I went out into the bustling Hong Kong streets — neon signs, an arcade, hot pot at a cozy restaurant with the rebooking crowd. I negotiated my way into a business class upgrade for the rerouted flight as compensation, and two days later I was on the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto with a window seat and a much better attitude.

Tokyo was the first stop. A walk through a sacred forest under a massive wooden torii gate, the city sounds fading as the path led deeper through the towering trees. A glass elevator up to the top of a skyscraper, a futuristic light-filled corridor, an open-air Sky Stage. Then a day trip out to Chureito Pagoda — a long climb up stone stairs to one of the most photographed pagoda views in Japan.

Then Kyoto. Stunning but freezing — just as cold as Boston. I layered a light hoodie under a heavy hoodie and shot everything on both my iPhone and my Fuji camera. An evening stroll through Kyoto's lantern-lit historic district, starting with a lively mochi-pounding street performance. Day five was a train to Nara — a famous park, free-roaming deer everywhere, deer crackers from a vendor.

Day six was Fushimi Inari — an afternoon spent climbing the mountain shrine, walking through thousands of bright orange torii gates that arc up the slope. The path keeps going long after most tourists turn back. The forest gets quiet. Then back down for a dazzling evening canal stroll past unique giant head sculptures, with city lights shimmering on the water.

An extended airport layover in Hong Kong on the way home — modern corridors, security checkpoints, bustling concourses. A bonus visit to the city I never planned to see twice in one trip.

It was one of those trips where the disaster at the beginning made everything that came after feel like a gift.