In Hiroshima eki, waiting for the first train

Ryou-san's mother made sure we were well taken care of. Breakfast was an assortment of breads and jam, fresh fruit, and more of that delicious warm milk. (Ryou-san had green tea.)  Then she gave us some Japanese style cookies to take along for the road.

Somebody had called a taxi, so we thanked her and headed out. 

I had expected Ryou-san to go with us as far as Shin-Osaka eki, since he's living in Osaka, but it was quite a surprise when he transferred with us to the shinkansen to Tokyo! It was a very pleasant surprise since it gave us another 3 hours to talk with him.

For Ryo to stick with us for as long as he did was touching enough, but when we'd realized he'd spent about $300-something to go to and from our last minute trip of madness, it made us want to spend more time with him to make up something for it.

We stretched it as long as we could, but soon we arrived in Tokyo and had to say good-bye. He had to get back to Osaka, and we had to hurry and catch the Chuuou-sen back to Yadoya so we could check out and head to the airport.

On the shinkansen, Eleanor took these pictures with her keitai:
   
Ryou-san with Eleanor's Pan-tan (left) 
and a (deliberately) rare pic of myself (right).

We were supposed to check out of Yadoya at noon. We got there at 11:55. Fortunately, they didn't mind. The guys there were too busy laughing at the fact that, yes, we did actually go all the way to Hiroshima yesterday afternoon.

We quickly threw everything in our suitcases and cleaned our stuff out of the kitchen. After looking over the room to see if we forgot anything, we spoke with the manager. He thanked us and returned our key deposit. After stretching the same 2,000 (about $20) or so yen for the last couple days, that 10,000 yen (roughly $100) looked like a lot of money!

It felt weird walking to the eki in Asagaya for the last time. We'd really begun to get used to the place, and neither of us were ready to leave... but we did have a family at home to return to. It was just after 1:00pm when we got on the train.

There were two trains when we got to the station. One was the one we were supposed to go on... the other was the one we took.

About a half hour into the ride I realized that I had accidentally gotten us on a "local" (every stop) train. There are times when we wanted to take a local train - when going somewhere that the limited express trains didn't stop - but this wasn't one of them. Local trains can be very slow and we had a plane to catch. On the chart, I could see that there was another express train that went directly to the airport from where we were. We got off, intending to catch that express. We'd missed it by 5 minutes. The next wasn't for another hour. 

It was hot and painful to run through the stations carrying the stuff we brought and the stuff we got. 

So we got on another express to Chiba figuring that there were a couple of express trains to the airport from there. There were. We'd missed them by about 5 minutes. We checked the monorail. It too had just left. By now, it was after 3:00pm and we were still in Chiba. In desperation, we went outside and grabbed a taxi.

We had the deposit money, so I figured we could afford the taxi. I thought it would be around 6,000 yen or so, a lot of money, but we could handle that. No problem... but I kept watching the meter. It passed 6,000... 7,000... 8,000... when it started to approach 10,000, I began to sweat. By the time we got to the airport, the meter said over 11,000 yen. After adding in the road tolls, the total came to nearly 13,000 yen! That's roughly $130! Yikes! We scrambled through our pockets and bags scraping up every yen we had but still came up about 500 yen short. What could we do? The driver was gracious enough to let it pass, but it was a very awkward situation.

We were broke but we did get to the airport on time... barely. After passing through about 4 layers of security, we were on the plane and headed back for Sea-Tac.

Going from Tomorrow 
To Yesterday again.

The 8 1/2 hour flight home was very pleasant. Like on the flight there, I didn't sleep on the flight home either. There was crocheting to do, music to listen to, movies to watch... I watched "In America" in English and "Seabiscuit" in Japanese... I had seen it in English during the first flight. Also, I now finally had plenty of time to read all those information magazines and pamphlets I had been given when we arrived in Japan, but never had the time to read.

Two meals were served: dinner and breakfast. On the way to Japan, we had had Japanese food cooked by Americans. During the trip home, they served American food - Japanese style. Ah! The wonders of international travel, eh. (heehee) ^-^ 

I had fallen asleep to some CDs Ryo had made for us on the Shinkansen.
Before we got America, I had woken up at sometime or another and looked out the window to see what seemed like the first sunrise in the whole world... This was the turning point when we were going from tomorrow to yesterday again. I went to sleep again after that... I may have woken up just to see that moment, who knows... 

Awhile later I woke up to a weird breakfast with tasty cake. I watched TV, and read manga, and time passed... it seemed slow then, but it plays back pretty quickly now. We arrived at Sea-Tac, got out, got drenched, Dad came, we got in the car, and went home.

At the time, I still couldn't quite believe that we were home. In my head I still thought I was going to wake up in Yadoya and head out with Mom to Asagaya for our next concert...

Heh... Even now, I sometimes close my eyes and can see the trees that lined the road... the Starbucks next to the station... I will never forget.

And I will be back. You'd better be ready for it! 

The weather at Sea-Tac airport when we arrived was just like it was when we left: wet. Nothing here had changed, but I think we did... just a little bit. We called my husband to come pick us up, then climbed in the van with our luggage, a serious case of jet lag, and a lot of memories. Thank you to everyone who made this an experience I'll never forget!

I definitely plan to go again! It'll take me another two or three years to build up the money, but I'm definitely going to do it!