04 Jun

Day 9 – Home Again!

Today we slept in a little and got ready for the long journey home.  Ileen had a ride to the airport since she was going much earlier than us, and to a different airport.  Mukta was leaving around the same time.  We decided to give ourselves lots of time, save some money, and take the train.

We were practically pros at navigating trains and metros by then!

Our check-in line was HUGE.  We waited at least 45 minutes.  But we had lots of time.

And our flight was delayed.  By like two hours!  Yuck.  Our connection could be tight.  We said goodbye to Mukta and went through security. 

I was hungry and we passed McDonalds.  Ally said she didn’t want anything and went to buy some water for the flight.  Then she came back and smelled McDonald’s and changed her mind. 

We are Americans.

At one point we walked by a Ramen place and saw Mukta in line.  She is such a good tourist.

We boarded our flight and settled in.  After about an hour, I heard the people in front of us asking the flight attendant if they were going to make their connection to LA.  She told them they could go sit up front.

When she passed us, I stopped her and asked the same thing.  She said she would move us to some seats up front before we started our descent.  Then she said, “It is…not much…time.  You go…very fast!  Very very fast!” and she moved her arms quickly like she was running at full speed.  Then she said we maybe would make it.  Haha!

They came and got us when it was time, and we grabbed Sherry on the way up.   The second we landed, everyone on the front row jumped up.  They told them all to sit down, but it was total anarchy.  Finally they gave up and we decided we should probably get up too.  So we did and we lined up to get off.  A few people tried to get past us because they had a tight connection, and everyone around us, was like – yes we all do, which is why we are all here.

We got off and went VERY FAST!

Sherry kept saying, “Don’t leave me in China!!”  lol 

I promised her we would not.

We raced to customs and made it through pretty quickly.  Then we went back through security.  The guard there was very scary.  He was yelling at us that we hadn’t taken everything out of our bags.  We had and couldn’t figure out what he was saying.

We finally realized he wanted us to take all our coins out and put them in a separate bin.  Ooookay.

Please don’t put us in jail. That’s all we cared about.

When we made it through, we realized we actually had a lot of time.  I think the flight attendants calculated the time change wrong when they were worrying.

We got to our gate and still had 30 minutes before boarding even started.  Phew!!

We relaxed, got some snacks, and boarded.  It was a super long flight, and we slept, watched a movie or two, and read a lot.

We made it back to LA, dropped Sherry at her hotel for the night, and started the 3 hour drive back home.

That was an amazing trip!  It was so different than many of our vacations.  Ally said it was definitely one of her favorite places she’s ever visited.

I thought it was a bucket list that I wanted to check off, and move on to other places.  But I was wrong!  I’m ready to go back! 

Thanks for reading! 

Tokyo or Bust!

Day 1 – On Our Way! To China? 
Day 2 – Hello, Japan! 
Day 3 – DisneySea 
Day 4 – Tokyo Disneyland 
Day 5 – Park Hopping 
Day 6 – Bullet Train to Kyoto
Day 7 – Massive Tour of Kyoto
Day 8 – Back to Tokyo 
Day 9 – Home Again!