Day 24 Japan!

Friendly faces in foreign places!

I woke up as we were approaching Japan and was happy to have secured a window seat.  Though I didn’t recognize anything it was nice just the watch the world go by until we landed.  After a quick stop in customs I again located baggage storage then found my friend Brittany!  She has been in Tokyo studying abroad for many months now and it was wonderful to see her again.  Additionally hugs from friends are amazing, especially after nearly a month. 

That is a lot of cucumbers.

Brittany had secured a train pass for me and we decided to head in to the town of Narita, which is right next to the airport, rather than the hour ride to Tokyo.  One think I did not expect in Japan was the weather, it was easily in the 90’s and very humid.  After negotiating the train we arrived in Narita and began exploring.  In the heat we started the late morning by sitting in the shade and enjoying a frosty adult beverage that tasted like lemonade but had the alcohol content of beer while discussing the days plan.  Our main destination was Naritasan Shinshoji Temple a Buddhist temple complex, it was first founded in 940 to commemorate a victory and an end to a rebellion.  It was quite for about 700 years until 1603 and from that point on it has been a more popular destination.  My favorite building was a pagoda from 1712, amazing! There is also a large park area and we wandered around the woods for quite a while.  Right at the edge of the park is a little restaurant and we had a beer in the shade, then headed to the koi pond back in the park. Obviously the koi are fed regularly because as soon as we approached them came from all over the pond to where we were in swarmed all over each other along with a couple of hopeful turtles.  We hadn’t purchased any fish food and disappointed them all by only taking their pictures and enjoying the view.  Brittany and I spent a good 3 hours wandering around and marveling at all the sites before we decided to head back in to town.  Though we had snacked a bit, and did some window shopping, we felt that lunch was in order.   

One must take the classic tourist photo.

Sadly for us we were not at normal lunch time and almost all the restaurants were closed until dinner.  We also were determined to get sushi, so we wandered, a lot.  Hot and hungry we pounced on an ice cream shop we found, nothing like green tea ice cream in Japan.  After our reprise we continued our search, though it was fruitless we did have street cart food. We found a takyoyaki stand, they are a ball of wheat dough with pieces of octopus inside, cooked in a cast iron pan that was a round mold for each individual piece cooked, it is then covered in several sauces and eaten by spearing with a toothpick.  Though I don’t eat octopus normally, I made an excepting for this most likely once in a lifetime opportunity and was glad I did.  Takiyaki is delicious!  We wandered a bit and headed back to the train station, of course the train station a few blocks away had an earlier train back to the airport so we headed there.  In that station was a baked goods shop, much like a doughnut shop.  I randomly picked out a few baked goods to eat later as we waited for our train.  Back at the airport we located the showers, Brittany waited for me as a had the best $10 shower ever in a private room larger than some bedrooms I have had, with more sinks than I knew what to do with and a glorious high pressure hot water shower.  

 

Stunning colors!

 A shower and clean clothes made me feel like a new woman.  Sadly it was a new woman who had to say goodbye to my dear friend and head back though security and customs.  We hugged and parted ways.  Happily customs took much less time than the line indicated and I was through with some time to spare.  I made it my mission to get sushi in Japan and I succeeded even if it was airport sushi.  I bustled the opposite way of my gate to find the advertised sushi restaurant, where I was quickly seated and soon filling my belly and meeting a personal goal.  I cut it close and reached my gate in time to get in the boarding line.  After reaching the front the said I had a message and asked me to step aside.  I looked over and there was my checked bag.  Oddly all then wanted was for me to allow an employee to dig out one of my two dive lights and remove the batteries.  When I told him there was another he said it was fine, had me store the removed batteries in another pocket of the bag, rechecked my bag and a proceeded with boarding.  I must have been tired because the minute the plane left the gate I was asleep no matter how hard I fought.  I had wanted to watch out my window and enjoy every second of Japan that I could but I woke up far out over the ocean in time for dinner.  My brain time sense was scrambled, Austria and Albania are in the same time zone but Japan is nine hours ahead of Austria, and Seattle is sixteen hours behind Japan. 

Breath taking.

 So technically I landed home before I even took off.  My flight left Japan about 6:00 pm and I landed at 10:30 am the same day in Seatac.

Home sweet home.