Japan 2010, Day 17 (Final Day)

Sunday, March 28, 2010

This was the last day in Japan. We got up and did any last minute packing, and Arnond borrowed my scale for his luggage. I headed out first, leaving my bags at the front, and went to Akiba for the last shopping on the trip.

Arriving at Akiba on the last day

Chris didn’t realize what time it was and ended up checking out of the room late. I hope that hotel isn’t unhappy with us, we certainly used their rooms in ways that I think they had never intended, but we certainly didn’t mess them up and properly paid for it all. I had lunch at Star Kebab, and I went back to the hotel to pick up my stuff, getting there a bit after 13:00. I ran into Chris there, and we both hauled our bags to Ueno, then Tokyo, and succeeded in catching the Special Rapid Narita Express that we had tickets for.

Chris and our luggage in Tokyo Station

We ran into Arnond heading to the hotel as we got to Ueno Station, so not surprisingly, he was unable to catch the same Narita Express and took the one after us instead. Security at Narita was different than in the US; after getting off the train, there was a checkpoint before even entering the airport where you had to first show some ID. Then at security, you didn’t have to remove your shoes. Anyway, made it to the gate without any trouble and waited there for the plane. Arnond took quite a bit of time to make it to the gate though; he apparently had run into a lot of trouble getting there. First he apparently lost his JR pass after getting on the Narita Express, so he had to pay upon exiting the station at Narita, and then they gave him trouble because his passport was in bad condition because he accidentally put it through the laundry on this trip. I think he may have had some other problems too, but regardless, this put him a little behind. Luckily, we all left for Narita early enough that he made the plane on time. On the plane ride back, although I was on the same plane as Arnond, we basically didn’t talk, just because we were asleep for most of the time, and our seats weren’t close. He was lucky and got an exit row seat though. I talked to this lady next to me who hadn’t been living in the US for a while now, coming from Singapore where she was helping train people for her company in other countries. It was interesting speaking with her. Anyway, we got to Chicago early, and though it took a while, I made it through immigration and met up with Arnond at the bag claim.

Arnond, safely back in the USA

We then went through customs without a problem, although we were both sent to be more thoroughly interviewed, as we had bought a lot of stuff. Although he had gotten ahead of me at customs, he passed up the area to check in his bags for his next flight, so had to head back for that, putting him behind me by the time I got to security to get into the area for the domestic flight gates. I hung out with him until he had to board, and then got on my own plane to Philly. I think we may have been a bit delayed in landing at Philly due to the low cloud ceiling, and we had to wait a little bit after landing before we could taxi all the way to the terminal. Picked up my luggage and found that the commuter airport train was not running for some reason, and that they were running a shuttle instead. I got on that, went back to 30th Street Station and stopped by my office cubicle. I found they had completely redone my cubicle and my stuff was in all sorts of crazy boxes, which I’ll sorted out later. Then I caught a cab back to my place from the station. I tried to figure out what I needed to do for work the next day, set my alarm, messed with the computer a bit, then went to sleep. And that’s the end of the trip!