Pictured: Prayer Monument for Everything in Narita, Chiba Prefecture. This area has some interesting English translations for its religious sites.
I just got back to my house in Japan after 48 hours of traveling from my childhood home in America. To be completely honest, I wasn't ready to go back to Japan and wanted to stay longer in the land of gluten free pizza and interactions without using a dictionary, but I have work on Monday and had to go. Luckily for me, I got one heck of a welcome thanks to Japanese customer service and people being the nicest ever.
As I said before, it took me over 48 hours to get home. My house in America is quite far from my house in Japan, but I actually should have arrived a whole 24 hours earlier. Let me explain:
I got a ride to the airport and arrived early enough to grab one last marionberry milkshake before the flight. Get on the plane, chat with my seat neighbor (a retired rally car driver from New Zealand), and we realize the plane isn't moving and there is a lot of banging going on. The pilot informs us there is an issue with the cargo bay they need to resolve. Now, mind you my layover in Hawaii is a little over an hour so those minutes ticking away is not good for me. We end up being delayed 40 minutes. I consulted the flight attendants and they said that my next flight should be in the same area and it will be tight but I can make my flight. The flight let those of us with tight connections get off first and I power walked to my gate...only to be told the doors already closed and I can't get on the flight. It was 15 minutes before the flight time but alas not early enough. Another girl shows up in the same situation as me, so together we talk to the worker at the gate and after a few phone calls we are sent to the airline counter to get new tickets as there is one more flight to Japan that day, but to a different airport than our original flight (for those who don't know, Tokyo has two airports). My new friend and I set off across the airport to catch our flight a couple hours later. However, we soon learned there is a slight catch: our luggage made the flight.
Luggageless, we get onto our new flight and hope our bags aren't lost forever. Because both flights are long (5.5 and 7-8 hours), food is served. My dad did call to request gluten free meals for me, but only one flight so far actually had food for me for whatever reason. Because I missed my original flight, this new flight did not have a gluten free meal for me. I told the flight attendant I can't eat the food because I am allergic to wheat and she immediately went to find some food for me. Apparently they keep some allergy friendly instant food on the flights. I was blown away at the kindness and customer service of this flight crew. My previous three flights were staffed by American crews but this flight was a Japanese crew and their reaction to "I can't eat it I am allergic" was so different. Japan in general is not super aware of allergies, but this flight attendant was wonderful making sure I got food on the 8 hour flight.
The process of entering Japan is much more efficient now, taking only about 30min instead of 2-3 hours of paperwork. However, when we got to customs and told them our bags were actually at a different airport, a bit of chaos ensued. An airport worker with good English was found and took descriptions of our luggage and the luggage tags. Since we are entering the country, the customs forms we had with us were required to get our luggage into the country, so we had to take our customs form to the other airport to get our luggage. Mind you it is about 8pm at this point and the other airport is over an hour away. The airport worker tells us where to go and a phone number to call and sends us on our way.
Taking the train to the other airport was fairly uneventful, but took a while. We had to transfer at a random station and while standing around a passerby approached us and asked where we wanted to go. This passerby was a smartly dressed young man who appeared to be half Japanese. He spoke to us in English, with a bit of an accent but nonetheless good English, and told us which train to take before jogging off to catch his train. Generally I've found Tokyo people a little cold but this guy was very kind.
At the other airport, I called the number given to us as my Japanese skills are better than my travel buddy and despite it being past 11pm at this point an airport worker came and found us. By some miracle, they had our bags and after giving them the customs forms we were finally reunited with our belongings and free to leave. Given that it was late and not much sleep was had in the previous 24 hours, we booked a hotel to stay overnight. Kinda funny to go from strangers to sharing a hotel room in under 12 hours hahahaha.
The next morning was pretty uneventful, aside from the rude reintroduction to Japanese summer humidity. My newfound friend and I parted ways at Narita Station, as she lives in the Tokyo area and I live in Tohoku. I wanted to at least get one shrine signature out of this adventure into Chiba Prefecture so after securing that I took a train to Ueno station then transferred to a bullet train up into northern Japan.
The jet lag sleepiness was setting in as my body thought it was nearly midnight so I got some very beautiful black milk tea for the caffeine boost I needed to stay alive the remaining several hours back home. Why not coffee you ask? Well I recently discovered I'm allergic to coffee (or at least react quite badly to it). Also, isn't this tea too aesthetically pleasing to pass up?
I decided to go to my favorite restaurant for dinner before catching a local train back home, but unfortunately for me it was getting late and I managed to miss my intended train. This is an issue for two reasons: there aren't many trains to my town and I was supposed to pick up my car. I did call the car rental place to say I wouldn't be back by closing as I was still in a city 1.5 hours away, but the person on the phone told me she lives in front of the station and they can bring the car there. My house is 1.5km (~1mi) from the station and it was pouring rain so having the car would be VERY nice. Before heading back to the station to wait for the next train, the restaurant owners saw my soaked raincoat and gave me an umbrella, as they are the cutest restaurant owners ever.
After killing two hours in the bookstore, now solidly late to pick up my car, I come across yet another problem: broken wheels on my luggage. At the start of this journey, one of my wheels was broken but this wasn't much of an issue as there are four wheels. Another wheel broke at Narita station but I was still able to push my suitcase through Ueno station. However, while waiting for my final train back home, half of a wheel was hanging off and upon further inspection, apparently all the wheels where split. A 50lb suitcase is fine to pick up, but the idea of carrying it all the way home in the rain was not something I looked forward to.
When I finally arrived at my local station, I look across the platform and see the owners of the car rental place waiting there. One of the most heartwarming and embarrassing moments of my life. They had the look of somewhat bemused parents when their child does something pretty stupid but has probably learned their lesson. After much profuse apologizing and thanking by me, they helped me carry my bags to my car and explained some work they did to the car while I was gone. I don't know how much of this is Japan's superior customer service and how much of this is just kindness. In my experience, the people in my village definitely take it upon themselves to look out for me as they know I don't really have anyone here. I couldn't be more grateful for the people of this town. Thanks to the kind car rental owners, the final part of my adventure was easy and happy.
Oh, and you know how I said my plane was delayed? It was delayed because some fans in the live animal cargo bay weren't working correctly. There were no live animals on the flight. They didn't actually have to fix anything, just do paperwork to show that they don't need to fix it yet. I missed my flight to Japan and had to go through nearly 24 hours of extra shenanigans and traveling due to paperwork. Gosh paperwork is the bane of my existence XD
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