Yup, It Gets Under Your Skin/the End (Day 15)

Ack, no. Not morning. Well, truth be told, I'm ready to go back. It kind of feels like I've been here for at least a month or so. The things that blew me away in the beginning are kind of a norm now, and I'm used to saying "Thank you", "excuse me", and "one yakisoba, if you please" in Japanese. All good things come to an end…for a while anyways, right? I need to go back and make some more money so I can come back.

The sun seemed especially bright this morning as Jean and I slowly packed up our goods and I had a delicious breakfast of senbei and sakusakupanda. The kind people at the ryokan said they'd let us leave our luggage there until the afternoon as we wanted to check out the happenings at Tokyo Dome.




I don't know how I would have ever found our ryokan without Jean having been here before. It's stuffed way in the back down an alley and nothing is in English.

We did some lunch and then checked out the baked goods at the 'Dome.






The roller coaster looked pretty dang cool, but I had no one to ride with. Boo.

Long story short, Tokyo Dome wasn't anything spectacular. We were both outta money, so the mall was no good and the rides were expensive. AND they had no crepes, which I wanted! We wandered back to the ryokan and picked up our luggage and began our haul to Tokyo station where I was to catch the Narita Express to the airport.






Remember this sign from day 1? Everything's come full circle!...and it sucks. Boo.



Jean and I said goodbye and she headed off back to Hino and I began my last hours in Japan alone. I boarded my train (where some old white guy finally asked ME for help! It was usually the other way around. No big deal.) As I sat on the train, I stared out past every district we sailed through and tried to detach myself this trip. It was a bittersweet arrival back on the platform where I had left 14 days earlier.




Shizz! When I arrived I found out my plane had been given a "new departure time" (the pleasant Japanese way of saying "Delayed".) The plane was coming from Toronto and there had been a snowstorm or something. Given that I now had five hours before departing, I took it upon myself to discover the shopping opportunities at Narita and have my last meal.


Man, this almost brought me to tears! I sought out a Lawson's crammed in the back corner of the airport and found my now-favorite Japanese meal. I ate it out on the observation deck with Japanese people milling about watching the planes come and go. I did some more shopping (finding the most kick-ass souvenir for B-Mal) and bought a magazine featuring Ryu to gawk at (because we all know I can't read it.) Security took only about 10 minutes and then I had quite a hike to my gate, stopping to stare at Hermes bags and cell phone charms along the way. This was it. As I sat on the plane and stared out hoping for one last look of the lights of Tokyo, the air traffic control people on the ground began waving as the plane started.


Tokyo, sayonara.