Part II - In America hanging out with BHu, YSki, ICn

I’m not sure what the plan is today. But what did happen was I got picked up late, but it was so wonderful to see my friends at the airport. I really had missed them. It was great. I had to wait for about an hour, but still it was all good. I had time to get a drink down in the Tom Bradley terminal so I could get change to go back to Terminal 6 and make a pay phone call to my mother, who called my youngest sister, who called BH to let her know which terminal I was waiting in. I should have carried the phone number with me, but stupid me forgot about that little detail. So it was nice to have my mp3 player.

After they came, we went to lunch, which turned out to be a long time before we had left. We went to Arby’s in Irvine at the El Toro exit. They were really really hungry and I could really tell. They were about to rip off my limbs and eat it, they were that hungry. Well not really that hungry, but pretty hungry. So we settled for something in between since I wasn’t that hungry and just got off the plane. It was great, we sat there for a long long time just talking. It was great to catch up with friends. Everything seemed so big for me though. That was a weird feeling that I haven’t had. I mean I felt like I was a munchkin or something. It was a culture shock that I couldn’t get used to.

Then we went to Tapioca Express to hang out and try out my puzzles that I gave to IC. These puzzles took forever to solve. They were the easy ones too. I didn’t think that they would be that hard, but everyone solved it and each one too. I had four in total. I had a very nice drink tonight; it was one of my favorites. It was earl grey milk tea with grass jelly. It sounds gross, but absolutely heavenly. We had stayed a bit too long I think. I had told my family that I would get home around 7pm so we could have dinner together, but that didn’t happen according to plan. I didn’t get home till around 10pm. I had dinner afterwards, and then I just talked to my sister till 7am. I was exhausted at this point, but still needed to use all the time that I had in San Diego. I know that time is already counting down and running short. I went to sleep in my sister’s old room.

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.