Back in America. Last Post

I never got to post a "Last Day" post, so I'll sort of do that now, even though I'm not in Japan anymore. This will be the last post in my blog.

It was really depressing to pack everything up. I tossed out three pairs of shoes, the towel I'd bought, and I left my sheets behind. I didn't bother going to bed at all, and neither did Emily, so we stayed up all night packing. I had several moments of thinking I couldn't fit everything I need to take home. We walked to Lawson around 4am to get breakfast, since I had to leave by quarter to six. No one was in the Lawson, not even an employee, so it was really weird wandering around the store. Right when we were about to go up to the counter, a guy appeared from the back of the store.

Evan and I shared a taxi to the Miyako Hotel, where we'd get a bus to the airport. Our luggage barely fit in the taxi. We had to hang around in the hotel for a while, before we could get on the bus. I think I was awake for fifteen, twenty minutes at most, and then I fell asleep, and woke up when we got to Narita.

Here's when we were going across the Rainbow Bridge.

The Fuji TV building on Odaiba.

I thought this looked cool, when a bus passed by right when I was taking a picture.

Once I got to the airport, it took barely any time to go through the luggage check, security, and immigration. I called Mom from my cell phone while I was waiting for people to be let onto the plane (I had to wait for two hours, and luckily the plane was exactly on time), and used up close to the last of my minutes. I got a message from Softbank shortly after, saying I had a balance of less than 500 yen left, and to recharge it. *sigh* When I was waiting in the airport, I got really close to crying, because I didn't want to leave.

Unlike the plane ride to Japan, where I had no one sitting between me and the person on the aisle seat, this time two Japanese guys who looked like they were a couple years older than me were sitting in the seats. Actually, I first walked right by my seat because one of them was sitting in my seat. The flight attendant asked him to move, and he did it without complaining. His friend helped me put my carry-on into the overhead compartment. I couldn't help but be amused when I realized that the guy sitting next to me (he was the one who had my seat before) was wearing bright, hot pink, fuzzy slippers.

For the entire plane ride, I didn't speak a word of English. I think it helped that the two Japanese guys were sitting next to me, so the attendants spoke to them in Japanese, and then I always asked for things in Japanese. During the very beginning of the flight, the guys were practicing English together, and they were looking up several things in one of the guys' electronic dictionaries.

I watched three movies on the plane: "Hero," a Japanese movie about lawyers, that was based on a tv show of the same name. Takuya Kimura, the guy who's in SMAP and in half the commercials on tv (or at least it seems like it) was the star of the movie, so it felt like I was back, watching tv in my apartment. I also watched Water Horse and the second National Treasure movie. The guy sitting next to me also watched Hero and the Water Horse (at the same time as I was...it was a little weird), but he fell asleep several times when watching Hero. At one point his head was in really close proximity to my shoulder, which made me a tad bit nervous, but then he sort of sat up again, watched five minutes of the movie and then his head went down again, on his friend's side. Toward the end of the flight, he tried watching Hero again, but I'm pretty sure he fell asleep again. I slept for a few hours when all of the windows on the plane were closed, but it wasn't nearly enough to make me not tired.

The food on the plane was good, and wonderfully Japanese, but I didn't have much of an appetite. At one point, the attendants were handing out ice cream, but they didn't hear me say I didn't want any, so one of the guys sitting next to me had it.

When we were over New York, I started feeling really sad and unhappy. Meanwhile, my two seatmates were looking through the window and going, "Nyuu yohku! Sugoi!!" (New York! Cool!") Obviously it was their first time going to New York, or maybe even America. We landed and then I went through customs (which took forever), during which I was minorly startled when the one of the security people told the people walking through the line to fix the rope, because someone's luggage had gotten caught and disconnected the ropes. In Japan, the people working there would have apologized to the people in line and fixed it for them. Not sharply tell the people to fix it themselves. Once I cleared customs (nearly saying "Arigatou gozaimasu," to the person and stopping myself just in time), I went to the baggage claim, bought a cart to put everything on (and had to pay with my credit card because I realized I didn't have any American cash on me), and got my luggage. One of my bags was ripped, and I asked if there was anything I could have done about it, and they told me, but when I saw my family two minutes later, my dad said it wasn't too bad, so I shouldn't bother.

The ride home was terrible, because it took forever. I was really hungry, but the "oriental" snack mix my mom bought for me to munch on tasted really gross (it didn't have any nori flavor, even though it looked like there was some on the crackers) and made my stomach feel weird. We stopped at a rest stop at one point, and when I was going into the bathroom, I almost walked into an old woman staggering along on her cane. I automatically bowed my head and murmured, "Sumimasen," as I passed by her. It took me at least two or three seconds to realize what I'd said, and felt really relieved that she hadn't heard what I'd said.

The rest of the ride back was just as bad. I was feeling really blah, and it really didn't help that the scenery was so gross and...unmanicured. XD Shortly after taking out all of the gifts and random things, I passed out on my parents' waterbed, and woke up in time for dinner. Then I went to bed some time after eight, and woke up at 3:15am. I stayed up for a little while, and got a cup of water before going back to sleep. I woke up again at seven, and there was no way I was going to fall asleep again, so I got up, took a shower, and got dressed. Right now my body feels tired, but my mind is wide awake. It would be 11:42pm in Japan right now. I haven't changed my computer clock yet...I'll do that in a second.

I feel like I should end this in a really nice way, but I can't think of a good way. Overall, I'm not happy to be home, and I feel like my time in Japan was just a nice, long dream. I miss my apartment already, even though it's nice to have my own room again. I emailed Yumika this morning to tell her that I had arrived, and that I really miss Japan already.