Going to Narita

The plan for today was to take my family back to Narita Airport so they could catch their flight back to San Diego. We took the Narita line at 12:37pm. It was great since it was a straight shot to the airport on that train line. The train ride seemed a bit long for me. Even though I’m used to the 2 hour rides on the train, this one felt a little bit long. We got to the airport just went I expected to arrive, which was about 3pm.

They checked in their baggage and then we just hung around the airport for a little longer. They did more souvenirs shopping on the 4^th floor stores. I grabbed some money from the ATM and then exchanged it into USD so I could give my mom to help pay for my laptop that I just bought. I’m really happy that I could be able to do that for her and help with the payments even though I’m living here.

We grabbed a late lunch at Big Boy restaurant. I hadn’t noticed that it was at the airport all along, and it was good to go with family to eat there. They don’t have any more of these in the states, so it’s a real treat to see them in Japan. They have a different menu, of course, but I think that many of the things are the same. They only had a light menu because it’s at the airport.

They went to the boarding gate around 5pm and that would be the last time I would see my family for another 9 months or so. I hung around the airport reading some magazines in the store and then watching CNN on the TV before my friend came out of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Bank at around 6:30pm. We left the airport after she got everything ready.

We went to Narita and went to an Izakaya. It was JiJiman, which I’m not sure if it is famous or not. We got dragon balls, which id something like sho long po, but deep fried. Then we got milk nabe, which is the store specialty. I thought that sounded very interesting, but it just tasted like normal.

We left the place around 9pm and I took the train home. It took me about 3 hours to get home from there. There wasn’t a rapid train fast enough to get me home earlier. It was a long tiring experience. I got a few calls around this time too.

This was around midnight too and the people from the red shoes organization were asking me if I could meet them tomorrow. But unfortunately I won’t be able to since I planned to meet up with another teacher tomorrow. I had originally thought that the red shoes would meet on the 7^th, but I guess that it didn’t work out that way.

I got another call around 3am and talked till 5am. It was a pretty good conversation. One of my co-worker friends got really drunk and needed someone to talk to on the phone while they went home to keep awake in a taxi ride. It was a really good conversation and I’m glad that we had the chance to do it, even though it was really late at night.