On Tuesday morning, Joe drove me to the Edmonton International Airport. I had checked in on-line the day before, so I really just had to drop off my bags. I was a tad worried that the bags would be overweight, but they were fine. After dropping the bags off, I had a bit of breakfast then went through security.
The flight to Vancouver was smooth. In Vancouver I went directly to the International Departures area. It was quite a hike! The airport has been upgraded since I was in it last and the corridors were very long and very quiet. I wasn't sure if I was even on the right track for a bit!
I showed my boarding pass and my passport to a security guard and got into the Departures area. I did a little shopping and was happy to see that that area had been upgraded too. There was a Virgin store, lots of souvenir shops and quite a few restaurants too. I found my gate, but I had oodles of time to wait. I did a small amount of shopping. I got a novel for the plane, some magazines and then had lunch.
After lunch, I went back to the gate and waited. And waited. The boarding time came, but we didn't board. They announced after a while that we were going to change gates and planes. There was some mechanical problem with the plane.
We had to wait another hour for the plane to be readied, but it wasn't bad really. We took off and had a quite pleasant flight. The movies were Iron Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and some weird thing that I didn't watch. The food was not very good on this trip. I always ended up with the not so great choice. Oh well.
Of course we arrived an hour late in Tokyo, so I was very happy that I had made a hotel reservation instead of trying to boogie over to Haneda to catch the last flight. I went through Immigration quite easily, although the comments of my friends about finding the place for Re-Entry Permit Holders were quite true. It was marked, but there was no opening in front of the booth. On my way to the Immigration area I vented my anger about having to be treated like a criminal, luckily there was no-one around me! When I got to the actual Immigration officer it wasn't that bad, but I still don't like it.
My suitcases took forever to get off the plane, however, they did arrive, so I can't really complain. After going through Customs I just took my bags over to the baggage delivery service and put them in. Whew. Talk about a load off!
I caught the bus to the hotel and checked in. I had a really nice room. It was bigger than I expected, a little old, but comfortable. I rested for a while, then went downstairs to have dinner. I had the hotel's buffet.
When I finished and went into the lobby I noticed that my husband had called me and left many messages, so I went back up to the room and called him back. He was happy to hear from me!
I went to bed that night quite early. I was asleep before 10 pm.
I woke up and was wide awake at 6 am. I was thinking that I would sleep later, until 8, so I was up before my alarms. I took a bath and finished my book in the bath. Ah decadence!
I had breakfast then a little later checked out of the hotel room. I waited for the bus back to the airport, then made the transfer by bus over to Haneda.
At Haneda, I hacked around. I did a lot of window shopping, but not a lot of shopping. I had lunch at West Park Cafe, then went through the gate to Security. It was very easy. I had the ticketless flight so it felt like something was missing, but it wasn't. At the Starbucks I grabbed a frappucino, then went to the gate and waited.
The plane ride was fine. I was originally supposed to sit beside someone, but the plane was nearly empty so the flight attendant asked me if I'd like to move. I did, and had a quiet flight.
At the airport I was all pumped up to see my husband, but he wasn't there yet. What? He was still working. However, he phoned me to let me know that he was finished and was on his way.
We had a lovely dinner at Bisto des Pointes after making a brief stop at a 100 yen shop. I had fish, Fumihiko had Beef Bourguignon. It was a lovely dinner.
We hit the grocery store for some food for the morning, then the drug store for some things for Fumihiko. Then, we came home and relaxed. It was a long couple of days for me and I was still tired. I went to bed before midnight.
That's my trip home. It wasn't too bad at all.
Later!
No comments:
Post a Comment