When I was nineteen, I almost ended up living inside the terminal at Narita Airport.
I had flown to Japan to meet up with my dad, who was a flight attendant. He had a three-day layover in Narita, so I caught a flight from Hawaii and timed it so we could spend a few days together. It was my first visit to Japan, and I had a great time.
When it was time to head home, my dad's flight left a few hours before mine. We were heading to different cities. I told him not to worry about me. I was flying standby on an employee pass, one of the perks of having a father who worked for the airline, and I had grown up around airports. I knew the routine.
I headed to my gate, watched people come and go, wandered through the terminal, browsed the stores, bought some snacks, and waited for my name to be called.
It never was.
Eventually, I asked the ticket agent if I was getting on the flight.
“Nope,” she said. “It’s full. You’ll have to catch the next one.”
No big deal. I wasn’t in a rush to get home, and I assumed she’d automatically moved me to the next flight. She had.
What she failed to mention was that the next flight to Honolulu didn’t leave for another twelve hours.
So I kept waiting.
I listened to music, read a book, took a short nap, and watched the airport slowly empty as the evening wore on. None of it seemed unusual. Flying standby back then meant I was often called at the last minute. I figured everything was fine.
After visiting the bathroom, on my walk back to my gate, I noticed the lights going out. I looked around. The crowds were gone, the shops were closed, and the terminal was empty.
I checked the departure board. There were no more flights that night. And that’s when it hit me. The airport had literally closed.
I started wandering around, trying to figure out what I was supposed to do, when a member of the staff spotted me. Judging by the look on his face, he thought I’d somehow broken into the airport after hours. Security showed up, and since nobody spoke English, I was escorted to an office and told to wait while they figured out who I was and why I was still there.
Eventually, someone from immigration arrived who spoke English. I explained that I was waiting for my flight to Honolulu.
He looked at me and said, “There is no flight tonight. That one already left.”
I thought, well, I can live here for the night. No big deal. Plenty of empty rows of seating to lie down on. But little did I know, Narita didn’t stay open twenty-four hours a day. At least not back then. The airport was closed, and I couldn’t stay there overnight.
So they walked me to the front entrance and kicked me out.
It was after midnight. The air was cold and foggy, and I was standing outside in a thin dress shirt and slacks because standby passengers had to dress professionally back then. My suitcase was on my missed flight somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, so I didn’t even have a jacket.
I remember standing there thinking, What the hell am I supposed to do now?
Fortunately, a taxi pulled up a few minutes later. I climbed in, headed back to the hotel my dad and I had been staying at, and checked in for one unexpected extra night in Japan.
Looking back, I wasn’t really trapped. I had a hotel nearby, a flight home the next morning, and enough money for a taxi.
But for a little while, standing outside that airport in the middle of the night, I had no idea how I was going to escape my predicament.
That feeling found its way into The Little Sushi Chef Finale, the final book in the Knives & Flames trilogy.
In this book, Akiko Ono isn’t fighting for a trophy anymore. She isn’t trying to impress the judges or survive another challenge. She’s trying to escape an island she was never meant to leave.
The following morning, I boarded my flight, got bumped up to first class, and enjoyed a comfortable trip back to Hawaii. Grab The Little Sushi Chef Finale and find out if Akiko ever makes it off the island.