Back in the States

 

 Narita Terminal 1 North Wing departures.

Hey! I'm in Kansas City!

I made it back from Japan with very few travel issues, though I did have to jettison two pairs of shoes, a sweater, and some old t-shirts at Narita Airport to get my luggage down to the regulated weight. This is not the first time I have been at that airport playing the edit-your-possessions-to-get-your-luggage-down-to-weight game. Even after the great luggage purge I ended up buying a new carry-on at the airport and stuffed about 35 pounds of books and shoes into it. This along with my roller carry-on (full of camera gear, my hard drive, and a years worth of research paperwork) still didn't fit all my stuff- I was wearing a sweater even though it was hot as -fill in the hottest place you can imagine-, my heavy suede shoes (the heaviest I own), and my Panama hat which I didn't want to get crushed. I also had a small purse and my laptop bag. It was ridiculous, but somehow nobody bothered me and I was able to get everything onto both of my flights. Nothing like moving on an airplane through multiple security checkpoints.... Part of the ease should be credited to Delta, which had really great service on all fronts- and decent airline food. On another positive note, because of the epic day of lugging my stuff on three trains and two planes I only shipped three boxes of stuff back. Shipping international is crazy expensive, takes six to eight weeks, and as it is done by boat, sometimes your boxes arrive looking like they have been, well, shipped around the world on a boat. 

Moving out of my apartment was as smooth as can be, which was a great surprise to me. Usually moving, something I have done more times than I'd care to remember, goes horribly for me. This last statement is probably true for everyone. In any case, this time wasn't too bad, and despite the heat, I vacated my apartment one day before leaving the country and had no crises or issues. Yay! A friend helped me to carry some extra stuff along with my stuff down to her apartment and we had a lovely dinner on my last night in Tokyo. 

Now, after five days of being back I'm finally starting to get over the jet lag and general exhaustion of the move, and I'm getting back into the groove of work and life here in the U.S. Some things about being back are amazing (being together with the fam, the speed at which my brain works in English, brunch), others are difficult (driving everywhere, the general inconvenience of American life, giant portion sizes). This is probably best placed in another post on another day.

In any case, I still have many Japan posts to catch up on, and life here is creating many interesting bloggable moments as well, so much to come!

 

 

Something like 24 hours after leaving my friend's apartment, arrival in Kansas City.