The Accidental Tourists
Nowhere in our itinerary did we include escaping a global epidemic.
While Americans considered who they wanted to put in office on Super Tuesday, we considered how we would be allowed back in the country.
My two best friends and I had planned our trip to Japan ten months prior, after seeing especially low rates on Priceline. Though the initial purchase may have been impulsive, our planning was meticulous: each day crammed full of shrines, pet cafes, tea ceremonies, and Michelin-star ramen bars.
Nowhere in our itinerary did we include escaping a global epidemic.
We were slated to leave for our twelve-day trip on February 20th; four days earlier, Japan’s case count of COVID-19 began to climb, with the addition of 67 positives from the ill-fated Diamond Princess cruise ship. But was it worth canceling our vacation? There were no travel advisories for Japan, and the cruise ship’s passengers were all still quarantined off the coast of Yokohama (which, thankfully, was not on our itinerary). Call it deep denial, or our inherent millennial narcissism, but it just seemed like coronavirus was somebody else’s problem.
Our first week in Japan was exactly how we’d pictured it — literally, our Instagrams have never been so active. We posted about our fluffy Japanese souffle pancakes, the melt-in-your-mouth fatty tuna donburi from Nara, the view of Mt. Fuji from our bullet train ride to Hakone. “This is awesome,” one of our friends commented on a photo of the three of us in Kyoto, donned in kimonos and mimicking the Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover. “Hope you’re having an amazing trip!” While our phones started to ping more frequently with tweets and CNN notifications, things seemed normal in Japan. The Japanese continued to go to work, ride the subway, and keep their shops open — they weren’t panicked, so neither were we.
Things started to change when we arrived in Osaka, with five days left in our trip. There were now confirmed US cases of coronavirus in California and Washington State. Italy, South Korea, and Iran had become hotbeds of contagion in a matter of days. The stock market was in shambles. Two of us received notices from our offices that upon our returns, we would be required to work from home for 14 days before being allowed back at our desks. Japan, which had thrilled us with its hospitable, open nature, decided to close all of its schools and museums.
We went back and forth about cutting our trip short, eventually choosing to stick it out with our planned departure date and take it day by day. Though much of our itinerary remained unaffected, the mood of our vacation had shifted considerably. Restaurants we’d had to book months in advance were now accepting same-day reservations just to fill their seats; the Toyosu fish market closed its doors to all visitors. “All of your photos look empty with no tourists,” my cousin commented on my Instagram story. “Stay safe over there!” wrote another. We started to wear our N95 masks more frequently and ration our hand sanitizer, which was depleting at an alarmingly fast rate.
When March 4th finally arrived, we planned to get to Tokyo Narita Airport four hours before our flight. We were eager to leave Asia, but worried about how hard it would be to do so. Had the US raised its travel advisory for Japan from a Level 2 in the last 24 hours? Would they test us for the virus, or merely take our temperature? And are the mini-pigs we played with at the cafe in Harajuku considered “livestock”? As a precaution, we each swallowed two Advil on our shuttle bus to the airport.
At the terminal, we were turned away from the gate attendants — not because we were being denied entry onto our flight, but because we were too early to check in. We weren’t alone: a line had already formed at our check-in counter, full of equally nervous passengers of all nationalities. When it was our turn to hand over our passports, the TSA agent breezed through the standard did-you-pack-your-own-bag security questions before asking if we had recently been on the Diamond Princess cruise ship. “No!” we responded in unison, bracing ourselves for the interrogation we were sure was to follow.
But that was it. The TSA agent handed us back our passports and set us free in the airport. No one stopped us as we bought chocolate at duty-free or checked into the Priority Pass airport lounge. As we boarded our flight back to Los Angeles, we grew even more uneasy — if they weren’t going to check us in Tokyo, how bad was it going to be in the US? A quick scan of our phones before we lost WiFi confirmed the worst: the US’s case count had grown past 100, with no signs of slowing down. California had reported its first coronavirus-related death and issued a state of emergency. A growing cluster in Westchester County was terrifying New York City, our final destination.
As we began our descent into LAX, we each took a deep breath and another dose of Advil. The landing was hard and jerky, as if the US soil was already rejecting us. We disembarked the plane and approached customs with trepidation, still wearing our masks from the plane.
But there were no cotton swabs, no thermometers, and no questions. The travel advisory signs looked the same as they had two weeks ago: only mainland China was listed as a risky destination, even though three other countries had since been designated just as dangerous. Despite landing in California — quite literally, a “state” of emergency — we were provided no pamphlets or fact sheets on how to identify, avoid, and prevent the spread of coronavirus.
We had just traveled from a city only 1,500 miles from the epicenter of the most unprecedented contagion of our time. And yet the US Department of Homeland Security let us and our 200 fellow passengers into the country without a trace of discernment. The TSA agent who stamped my passport didn’t even ask me to remove my mask. We spent our layover at In ’n’ Out Burger and flew back to NYC just as easily as we’d arrived.
As the case count grows in NYC and beyond, my friends and I can only sit in our self-quarantines and watch. Call it deep denial, or our inherent Western narcissism, but COVID-19 is no longer “somebody else’s problem” — it’s everyone’s problem. And if our experience at LAX is any indication, we can’t rely on laws or legislation to curb it. For now, our greatest defenses are education, our own best judgment, and a whole lot of hand soap. At least while supplies last.
