KONNICHIWHAT!?: More Than A Month Later Pt. 1

See what I did there with the post title? Anyway, so yeah, I'm back in Japan now after having spent my winter vacation traveling back to the States to be with my family. I couldn't really mention that before because it was a surprise visit and I couldn't let the cat out of the bag. I'll start from the beginning and give you all a rundown of how my traveling panned out. Flying to Denver is not a short trip when you're coming from Japan. I know that's incredibly obvious, but without having a direct flight there, it's hard to really imagine how long you're going to be in the air and how much flying you're going to be doing. My adventure began on December 23rd. I took the 2 hour train to Fukuoka from Oita, because I was staying overnight in a hotel so that when I woke up on the 24th, I would only have a short taxi ride to the Fukuoka airport. I woke up Christmas Eve morning to snowfall and thought, "Gee, I hope this doesn't make for an uncomfortable flight." See, that's where my mind goes because I highly dislike flying. My lady friend was with me at the hotel and airport. I was filled with anxiety, as it had been a year since I had flown, and I really had no appetite. I said my goodbyes and boarded the flight to Narita. Luckily, I had an aisle seat with the seat in the middle being empty and an elderly Japanese man at the window. Having an empty seat next to you is pretty awesome, as most of you know, but I was also happy to have been sitting next to this older guy (whose name I never did get), because he was very friendly and talkative. Normally, I don't want some stranger chatting at me, but I welcomed the distraction from being in a steel tube in the sky. This dude was in his 60's, a retired university professor living in Canada, who had been living there for over 30 years. His English was basically fluent level. Turns out he was in Japan visiting his mother, who had just turned 101! I was blown out by that. He said that Japan has the highest number of centurions in the world. I'm inclined to believe him because I see old people everywhere I look.

After landing in Tokyo, I didn't really have much time to look around. I had to hurry up and get through security and check in my luggage to be sent to the States. One good thing about having a residency card here in Japan is that the line for someone in my position was super short. Score. Got my bag checked in, bought some snacks and water for the flight and it was already time to board. I was seating in the very last row (for passengers, as the actual last row is the flight attendants row), on the aisle of the middle section. The three seats in the middle were empty, (again, score!), and then there was a lady in the left aisle sleep. This put me at ease having all this extra room. I could stretch out and have easier access to the junk in my bag. Also, the captain let us know that the flight would be shorter than previously announced (at around 8 hours 35 minutes, as opposed to 9 hours 30 minutes), so things were looking good. And they remained good, as the flight went fairly smooth. Whenever we had turbulence, the captain was quick to get on the intercom to let everyone know that he was adjusting the flight to avoid it, and I thought, "this dude is on his shit." I watched, "The Bourne Legacy", and thought was pretty good. I also saw the new, "Total Recall", and thought that wasn't so good. The best part about those international flights is getting access to brand new movies right away. As usual, I couldn't really sleep, but for whatever reason, I wasn't that tired and the time moved faster than expected

Landing in LA, I was a bit taken aback at the crudeness of the workers in the airport and reminded at how American security and immigration tolerate zero bullshit. I can respect that...the hardcore security part. I was also reminded at how dumpy LAX is. Oi vey. I took a shuttle to my American Eagle terminal (flying on an airline that sounds like a clothing store), and my flight was schedule for 10:25 to Denver. Got to the terminal, dude gets on the intercom and says that the flight is being delayed due to maintenance issues. Something you always want to hear before flying right? He gives an estimated time of departure as 11:30, as they now have to wait for another plane coming in from San Diego. I saw on the ground watching the old 1979 Gundam anime movie on my laptop. Final departure time ended up being 11:50, and they had been offering $500 vouchers to people willing to take later flights. I wasn't having it because at this point, I was done flying. I got on the super sketchy, celebrity killer plane and was seating in the aisle in the very last two seats, right next to the shitter. Awesome. I thought, "how many trips to the toilet could people possible make on a less-than-two-hour flight? Turns out, a lot. On the brighter side, the flight attendant was super awesome and seated next to me. We chatted about my life in Japan and her life in Chicago. She gave me gossip magazines to, "keep me up to date on the nonsense in America", and even gave me an extra can of orange juice when our flight landed. All in all, some better than average flying experiences for a guy trapped in economy. Landing in Denver was a great feeling. I had my feet on solid ground for longer than an hour and heck, it was Christmas Eve and I was back in America!