The night before, I was looking into extending my visa, and planning our Shikoku hiking trip that was to start in a few days. But I was also reading about shelter-in-place being implemented in the US. At the Shunkoin Guest House, we had our own room and bathroom. At most one other person was staying at the guest house. Staff kept their distance. But we were taking public transportation for sightseeing, and anticipating staying in hostels, etc. on the Shikoku hike.
Will and I were just getting ready to go out for a two-day trip to Asuka, the capital before Nara (and Nara was the capital before Kyoto). Literally, we had on our day packs, had just put on our shoes, and were just outside the guest house. My son Dan called from the US -- he had just heard that the US was basically recalling citizens. Level 4 -- do not travel, with the caution that if we did not return now, we might have to stay indefinitely.
I got on line right away. Fortunately we did not have return tickets that we needed to exchange. The United Airlines tickets from Kansai (Kyoto area) were $4000 (each, one way!). It was a 2- hour wait to talk with United on the phone. On Expedia, I got Delta tickets on-line (from Tokyo to Atlanta to Dulles) for $1000 each --with the note that the price would likely be going up. We had accumulated a few things -- including some things for hiking/camping, And Will had come with 4 items, some small. So we were one suitcase short. We asked where to shop, took the train to the stations and bought basically the cheapest suitcase. We had started to open it up on the floor. A serious no-no in Japan. The staff put the suitcase up on a table to open it and it looked more or less sturdy enough for at least one flight.
We got 10% off for having our passports. And 5% off for using a Visa card. $73 was good. You can see the blue suitcase in Will's station picture.
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