Living & Moving — MishapA War Broke Out, So I Paid 300,000 Yen to Get Out
At 4:16 p.m. on February 28, 2026, I was looking at my phone in a hotel room in Yerevan. On the screen was a piece of shocking news.
01A round stone building lit from below, and the square in front of it wet and holding the light. Until the night before, I had simply been walking here.
“The United States has started a war with Iran.” “Iran is firing missiles at Dubai and Saudi Arabia.”
The flight I was supposed to take was flydubai FZ8124, the next day, March 1. Out of Yerevan, into Dubai International Airport, 4 days there, then on to Kuala Lumpur. Sightseeing, a holiday in a 5-star hotel.
The war ruined that dreamy little life. The United Arab Emirates closed its airports. My itinerary collapsed under a war.
I am in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. Armenia is the country next to Iran. At this rate, the sky over Armenia might close to flights too.
I read the state news agency's announcements as well. The one thing I wanted to know, when it would go back to normal, was written nowhere.
Dubai is the hinge that connects Europe and Asia. When it stops, every flight that was meant to pass through it stops at once.
Nothing had arrived from the airline yet.
It Was Supposed to Be an Elegant Scouting Trip
Since February 22, I had been in transit with no home. I gave up my room in Japan on February 18 and disposed of the furniture along with it.
The chain I had built ran from Yerevan to Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, and on to Bangkok. Dubai and Kuala Lumpur were wedged into the schedule as a scouting trip, to check whether choosing Bangkok as the place to move to had really been the right call.
2 days could not be moved. On March 13 there was work in Japan I could not skip, and the day after that, March 14, I was to move to Thailand.
- The original route Yerevan → Dubai → Kuala Lumpur → Tokyo → Bangkok
The flights and the hotels were, of course, already booked.
Every plan I had from here blew away, and everything in front of me went dark.
2 Options
Staring at the screen was not going to move the situation, so I decided to eat. The me who is panicking cannot solve a problem; the me who is calm can. That much I knew.
I ate barbecue and thought it over with a glass of wine. About 1 hour in, I realized there were only 2 things I could choose.
Stay in Armenia Until the War Ends, or Escape Toward Europe Right Now
2optionsStay, or get out
02Two frames of the same size side by side, with a time printed on only one of them. When I lined them up they weighed the same; the time was added after I had decided.
I could guess what staying would look like on the spot. 1 month living in a hotel, about 200,000 yen. But Yerevan is cold, and in the districts full of foreigners the prices are no different from Japan.
At 8 p.m. I wrote the whole thing up and posted it on note. Writing it gloomily would have been uncool, so I made it a poppy piece called “Escape, or Move to Armenia?”
By the time I had finished writing, I was starting to think it was an overstatement to call myself trapped when all I was doing tomorrow was going to Madrid. By then my worries had shifted toward the pain in my wallet and the refund claims.
At 9:06 p.m. I Bought the Flight Out
At 9:06 p.m. I finished signing up for a Polish airline's membership. I booked a flight out of Yerevan, connecting in Warsaw, on to Madrid.
23 minutes later, I paid 49,492 yen for a place to stay in Madrid. It was for 3 nights.
What decided Madrid for me was that I had already been there 3 times, and it is a place where I feel safe.
9:40 p.m. I summed up my situation in 2,000 characters and threw it at a generative AI. The flight I had taken, where I was. How anxious I was.
The AI answered calmly. “Ami, what rotten luck. That said, a flight heading toward Europe has a high chance of taking off. Still, in case even that flight does not fly, let's sleep properly before departure and save our strength.”
I decided to sleep until 2 a.m.
I got up at 2 a.m., took 30 minutes to get ready, and went to the airport by taxi.
I only learned that after I had come to the gate for the Warsaw connection. In front of the gate, crowds of tourists whose planes were not flying wandered around at a loss. I ate a sandwich and waited, longing for the moment of escape.
3 Days Later, the 2nd Flight I Was Meant to Take Vanished Too
March 1, 5:30 a.m., before dawn. The plane I was on took off. Outside the window was a lovely landscape of brick.
At 6:31 a.m. I landed at the airport in Warsaw. Drinking a coffee there, it sank in that the crisis had passed.
At 2:30 p.m. I arrived in Madrid.
At 4:35 a.m. on March 3, an email came, this time from Batik Air. It said that flight OD0714, which was supposed to leave Dubai at 4:00 a.m. on March 5 and reach Kuala Lumpur at 3:30 p.m., had been cancelled because a number of airspaces had closed.
What would have become of me that night if I had not booked a flight? Would I be standing around at a loss in Armenia right now?
At 6:20 p.m. on March 5, I arrived in Kuala Lumpur. I had stayed 3 nights in Madrid and then gone to Kuala Lumpur via Japan. It was 4 days and 22 hours later.
The loss I counted up that night came to about 300,000 yen. Rather than wait for a refund and wait for the Dubai flights to run again, fly to another country now and get my own working life back. Looked at over 1 or 2 weeks, I judged that came out ahead.
This much money and this much time, to cross a border. For the me of right now, that was a bitter decision.
In 2 or 3 Years, I Hope I Can Cross Borders More Lightly
What those words are talking about is probably not only the price. It is about wanting enough power that, when the same thing happens, this will not even be a decision.
