Homeward Bound

Narita International Airport
Originally uploaded by erickpineda527.

The last day was a hodge podge of confusion and stress. We still had to pack and check out. Plus we had to schedule our bus trip to Narita International airport. We wanted to tour more, but I was nervous about missing our bus, our flight, etc. The bus ride was surprisingly long (two hours) and once we got to Narita International we were in for another shocker. Since we are used to long security checks and baggage check-in (think L.A.), we arrived three hours before our flight out. Unfortunately, my foresight worked against us. Our check-in and tram shuttle to our gate took a total time of 30 minutes. What to do for 2 1/2 hours...

El tried some duty-free shopping (boring), I tried reading (got restless) and the food at the terminal was AWFUL. Talk about spoiled from our previous sampling of local cuisine. Even worse, after speaking with someone at the Japan Air ticketing counter we were unable to upgrade to first class. Damn! Once on board I decided to make the most of our 12 hour flight and had a few drinks and passed out. What a mistake. As I mentioned earlier the Japanese have no tolerance for cold weather and thus I awoke sweating in my seat with a terrible hangover AND with 8 more hours to go! Even worse I wore a long sleeve light sweater in anticipation of very cold overhead A/C vents. Uncomfortably hot and with a pounding headache I scrambled out of the chair as my fellow travellers snoozed bundled up in their layers of clothes to stretch out. El was fast asleep and I felt like jumping out off the plane. That had to be the absolute worst plane ride ever.

Once we were in LA we were culture shocked once again with long lines, rude people, and inefficient terminal staff. We hopped onto our next plane and I welcomed the larger seats with their individual cold air conditioning and a shorter (8 hours) flight towards home. We arrived back in Orlando closer to 2am and we chatted until the wee hours with Rachel and finally went to bed. We awoke finally at 5pm the NEXT DAY. Talk about wiped out. It took over a week to adjust back to our time, although I've still been coming in to work earlier than before. It was a fantastic trip and someday we hope to make it back there. For a small country there is so much to see and so much that westerners could learn from the Japanese.