The 117th Episode : First landing onto the South American Continent
[May, 1998 Santiago, Chile]
May, 1998, my first landing onto the South American Continent. It was Santiago International Airport, Chile.
I was in our distributor’s car to go to the hotel. The car was on the expressway after it left the airport. Both sides of the expressway only the bushes spread. May at 33 degrees S.L. was autumn. Those bushes were grapes after the harvest. Chile is famous for wine.
When the grape cultivation in France had a big insect affection in the 19th century, the pure French nursery trees were protected to started the production of Chile wine. Because of these many immigrants from France are in Chile. The president of our distributor is also French Chilean. I recognised from his last name.
Anyway they make use of the lands around the airport for grape fields where tall buildings can’t be built. That’s a good idea. While we were talking, arrived at the hotel around 9:00 a.m. Finally, here I was! I could get a bed.
Indeeed, that was a really looong trip. From Kansai AP to Seattle, at the northwest corner of the US, and flew to Miami along the diagonal line, only that took 4 hours. Nearly from Osaka to Hong Kong both in the distance and time. At Miami I took the last flight to Santiago. I couldn’t see the beautiful Caribbean Sea that time due to the night flight.
It had taken 36 hours to arrive at the hotel in Santiago since I left my home in Osaka. One day and a half. Of course there were other routes, like Kansai – LA – Santiago, or Kansai – NY – Santiago. But they were expensive. Those route could save the time by about 10 hours!? Cheap tickets took me some places that were interesting.
Due to the long flight and jet lag, what's the day and date today, what time is it, where was I, that was my feeling. The driver left for his office telling me “Take a rest first of all anyway. I’ll be back to pick you up around noon. Let’s have a lunch together and have a meeting after that.”
