Part I - In Japan and on the plane

Today, I’m off to catch a plane to go back home. I know I’ve mentioned it many times, but I just have been thinking about all the things that I need to do this week and how important this trip is for me. I left my house a little late and missed the bus I wanted to take, which lead me to miss the train I wanted to take. So I tried to take a faster train to get me to the station faster, but I’m not sure if that worked out or not. Anyways, I had figured out that there is a rotation of trains that comes every hour to goes to the airport. Since I aimed to go on an earlier train, it was ok that I missed my train. I just couldn’t miss any more or I’d be stuck at the airport.

I’m very glad that I had bought my mp3 player. It has accompanied me very well on the train ride to get to the airport. It was a long trip, about 3 hours from start to finish. I arrived at Narita Airport Terminal 1 around 2pm, which was the time I was supposed to go check in and get my ticket. Everything went pretty smoothly actually. I didn’t run into any troubles, other than just leaving my house a little late. I wanted to grab some bite before I boarded the plane so I got a nice udon noodle set right next to the boarding gate. It was pretty good and enough to get me through the flight.

But the problems started when I got on the plane. There was something wrong because we didn’t leave the tarmac on time. In fact we were one hour late to take off. Three young ladies walked on the plane about 45 minutes late and I’m not sure if we were waiting for them or not. They were the loud type too, which to my luck sat right behind me. They were the cutesy type though, but loud. So not sure if that really worked out well for anyone on the plane. The flight attendants were pretty old and pretty rude. The food is airplane food, so I didn’t expect much. I didn’t get much either, but overall, it wasn’t too horrible. I survived, which is a good thing. The movies on the plane were Bridget Jones Diary – didn’t watch it, Shall we Dance – didn’t watch it, Sky Captain and the world of tomorrow – wished I didn’t watch it. And the Incredibles – good movie and glad I watched it. It was a bit choppy, but still got through most of it without too much interruptions. We actually arrived earlier than I thought we would. Somehow the pilot made up for about 45 minutes of the lost time and we weren’t too late. I don’t know how that works out, and why they don’t always just do that.

Immigration and customs was actually quite quick. I was amazed and shocked, and then amazed again. I think it was because we landed in a smaller terminal and it was early. It seemed like it was the first flight that came in internationally. I like the swiftness that came with it and landing in terminal 6 instead of the Tom Bradley international airport terminal.