Free Pot at Narita!
A traveler arrived at Narita two days ago and left the airport with his bags 142 grams heavier than when he arrived. The officials at Narita kindly comped the visitor 5 ounces of marijuana, slipping it into his suitcase and leaving it there.
True story, though the intentions were different. A customs official put the marijuana into the bag as a real-world test for his pot-sniffing dog. The dog failed to find the cannabis, and the official failed to keep his eye on the bag. The customs people are not supposed to do this kind of thing–use actual travelers’ bags in exercises, that is (I’m fairly confident that they’re also not supposed to give away free pot).
This would be more funny if it weren’t for the fact that had this traveler continued on to a country in Asia where such baggage finds are not kindly looked upon, he or she could have been in deep, deep trouble.
The traveler apparently discovered the hashish and returned it to the airport officials. Only in Japan, eh?
Hey, I just went through Narita Airport. I couldn’t believe it….they fingerprinted everybody who entered the country. That was a little shocking to me. This seems to be pretty typical of Japan though. They rely so heavily on their tech that they make big mistakes like the pot incident.
Oh well. Here’s some good info about Narita if you have a stop or a long layover there…. Where to Stay and What to Do in Narita.
P.S. Skip the pot….Try Okonamiyaki if you’re in the area!
Yep, the fingerprinting has been going on for some months now. While I find it annoying, my main reaction is, big deal. So you swipe your finger there, and they take a photo. They do the same thing in the U.S. when you get a drivers license. Kind of like the whole information privacy thing–we get our panties in a bunch because advertisers are collecting data on us about what we buy and how we live–but then, for a discount at the supermarket, we give them even more detailed info by using the member’s cards. We talk a lot about privacy in ways that, in the end, we really don’t care about so much.
Of course, when the abuses start coming it could be shown up as being a lot worse, but it still seems kind of down the “major worries” list for most people.