smarter than a speeding bullet (tronella) wrote in linguaphiles,
smarter than a speeding bullet
tronella
linguaphiles

Japanese question

Hello! Would anyone be able to help me understand this Japanese sentence? It's from an essay by Haruki Murakami (Osekkai na hikouki) and I'm a bit lost with it. He's complaining about having to fly to Hokkaido for one day of work, I think.

Here's the sentence:

僕は大きな声で正々堂々と断言するけど, いくら仕事とはいえこんなしょうもない旅行は――離着陸する飛行機を地上からほぼ実物大のサイズで見たいという人を別にすれば――ちょっとない。

And my attempt at translating it:
I said out loud that it was fair enough, but [ikura shigoto to wa ie] this kind of boring trip [chotto nai = doesn't really happen?] -- except for people who want to watch planes landing and taking off from the ground at almost life size.

I don't really understand the "ikura ~ to wa ie" construction. My teacher's notes say that it means "however" or "even admitting that", but I don't get how it fits together here. Is it something like "I said it was fine, but really it's not fine even for work trips"?

I also don't really get what the part between dashes has to do with it.

Thanks for any help!
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