Tokyo Airport

In my last 15 odd years of international travel I have seen many a airport both good and bad. Like the Sydney airport it would seem like you are going to miss the runway and end up in the water when you are landing or the old HongKong airport in the middle of the city where planes have to basically do a helicopter maneuver to get it right and that too flying between two towering buildings barely far apart to fit the plane and you get the picture. I have not seen the new Hongkong airport but I have heard that they built an artificial island to put it up.

Tokyo's Narita International airport is is unique in that the terminals are stacked up like blocks. You walk around a snaked walkaway ramp to get to the plane from the fourth floor terminals. I guess trying to fit things into an island can be a challenge at times. The airport terminals are sort of squished. Each of the floors have a single restaurant that charges an arm and leg even for a cup of coffee (guys I'm not talking Starbucks prices) and a duty free shop smaller than some of the convenience stores attached to the Gas stations here. The whole thing looks like a stack of dominoes.

Now when you get to the plane to board they had half a dozen women security officers to pat down ever passenger. Seriously they had women security officers patting down men as well (Guys don't run out to buy your tickets to Tokyo yet). All I could think of was how mechanized this world has gotten. They just went about their business like they were robots lined up to perform a task. I wanted to take a picture of this but in the end decided wisely against it as I did not want to risk of being put in a Japanese jail for the rest of my life with a robotic jailor beating the crap out of me.

I would like to hear your opinions about the unisex patting down abuse that passengers have to go through at the Tokyo airport.


--Raj