Home sweet home!
Woke up at 5:30 this morning in Osaka, Japan. Back home it was 3:30 in the afternoon the day before. We checked out of our hotel a little before 6:00 and walked over to the airport. Just a short line and not so many people around the airport this morning. Checked into United and got all three boarding passes. Proceeded to our gate for our first flight of the day to Tokyo.
The flight left on time and arrived a few minutes early in Tokyo. We departed and had to ride a bus for about 20 minutes to the international terminal. We went through Immigrations and then went to our gate. I had purchased a small pair of scissors to cut our medical tape and my bag got pulled so they could find them. I had to hand them over. Luckily I had put them in the zip lock bag with my liquids in case they were too big to go through the security screening so they were easy to find. We didn’t have to pull our liquids out of our bags. We only had 90 minutes between flights and made it to our gate with five minutes to spare.
The flight from Tokyo to Chicago was almost twelve hours long. Another almost full airplane. We hadn’t upgraded this leg but we had two seats together. Nicole had the aisle seat and I had the window seat with no seat between us. Neither one of was able to sleep very long the whole flight. We both watched a couple of movies. Since I had a window seat I looked for meteors. I think I saw three small ones. I could see the Big Dipper for quite a while. I was able to watch the sunrise. It was beautiful!
Finally landed in Chicago at 8:30 US time this morning. We made it through Customs and Immigrations with no delays. My bag got pulled when we went through security. I had a souvenir in it that was a solid piece of stone and it triggered a hand inspection. The lady that did it was incompetent. She seemed to be a new employee and her trainer didn’t seem to correct her.
She opened my bag and started taking my clothes out of it. She picked up a swap strip and ran it along the inside of my bag. She put the swap strip in her machine and then proceeded to take more things out of my bag. When she found the souvenir she took it out of its box. She picked up the old swap strip and ran it over the piece. When she put the swap strip in the machine she put it in backwards and the machine never did run the test on it.
She ask if I wanted to repackage my bag or if I wanted her to. I told I would and she moved my bag to a bench. I repacked it and we left the area.
It must have taken her four or five minutes to do my bag. By then there were several other bags waiting for her. Guess I was lucky I was only the second bag when mine was pulled. There were several other workers just standing around watching her slowly go through my bag.
I don’t mind inspections for safety reasons. I do mind inspections when they are handled poorly.
Our flight to KC wasn’t until after noon so we had a three-hour wait. We went into a restaurant to order lunch and discovered it was still breakfast time. Not what we were hungry for so we left. We found a little kiosk and Nicole got a pizza and I had a hot dog. Nicole walked down and got us iced tea from the McDonald’s in the airport. By the time she walked back neither one had any ice left in them. I went to the little coffee shop close to our gate and they gave me a free glass of ice. I was disappointed in the tea. Oh well, it was better than what I had gotten in Japan.
I fell asleep on the plane from Chicago to KC. It felt like I had slept for hours. When I woke up I was impressed the plane was flying so quietly. Finally figured out we were still sitting on the runway and I had only slept for ten or fifteen minutes.
We finally made it to the KC airport around 2:15. Kathy was there waiting for us to give us a big hug and welcome us home. As we had hand carried our luggage we were able to leve the airport immediately. We drove Nicole home and dropped her off. We went to Chipolte for lunch and then headed home. After stopping to get my car from Craig I drove home. Oh so sweet to finally get home.
It took over 25 hours of travel time to get here. Next time I need to remember to pack my ruby-red slippers and fly home that way.
Found out Legend has been missing for four days. Sure trusting he will find his way back home again. He has been gone for two days before but never four. Maybe he has a new lady friend in the neighborhood and will still return.
I took a soaker bath and went to bed. I slept for four hours but am now wired and ready to be up. This time lag thing is real! Good thing I don’t have anything I have to do this week so I can sleep whenever I can find it.
May do some mowing tomorrow so I can get outside and ground myself to home again. Other than doing laundry and putting away the stuff from my bag I don’t have anything else to do. Maybe sleep will find me again soon.
Oh such a wonderful adventure I had. But it is so very good to be home!