Thursday, November 30

Breakfast at hotel

I joined Jason, Kevin, Karen and Katie for breakfast in the hotel. We started saying some good-byes. Jason and I are on the same two flights, but neither Kevin nor Katie are with us. I said good bye to Karen and Roger in the lobby as their bus was ready to leave for the airport.

After breakfast, Kevin, Jason and I took a walk around Shinjuku for some last looks, pictures and discussion. There was nothing especially interesting going on, but we wanted to make the most of the time we had left.
As we waited to leave the hotel, a number of volleyball teams began filtering in. The world volleyball championship for men’s teams is being held in Tokyo. I saw members from Serbia & Montenegro and Italy. They were quite tall.

12:25pm: Leave hotel

The trip to the airport took nearly two hours due to traffic. The check-in agent was very nice to me when I asked if there was an exit row seat available. There wasn’t one, but he changed my seat assignment so I have a window seat instead of a middle seat for the long flight to San Francisco.

The airport has a good selection of stores. Jason, Rachel and I (all on the same flight to San Fran) had lunch at McDonalds before heading through security. I also worked hard to spend the last of my yen and purchased some green tea kit kats and a Japanese chocolate candy. After passing through security, we saw a large gathering of people with cameras and video equipment with press passes. The word in the crowd was that an American negotiator with North Korea over nuclear weapons was coming through. We hung around to see the action and I took a few pictures, but I don’t know who the guy is or what he has been doing. I’ll have to do some research on that when I get home.

Oops – I spoke to soon. As I type this while waiting for our flight, the video images are being shown on the news. The dialogue and info on screen are in Japanese though so I still don’t really know anything more.

I’m hoping the flight to San Fran is smooth and I can get some sleep. This is a long day. I slept about 5 hours last night and have been up since 8:15 this morning. After our 10-11 hour flight, we’ll arrive in San Fran at 9:30am today. In other words, we’ll be repeating history. Then it’s a full day of waiting in the airport and traveling cross country before arriving in Newark at 10:35pm, a trip to get my car and then the hour drive back to my condo.

5:25pm: Depart from Narita Airport

9:18am: Arrive San Francisco Airport

We arrived before 10:00am. The flight was relatively smooth with some periods of turbulence. My seat was in the very last row of the plane in an area that had only two seats instead of three like the rows before it. This gave me better leg room and I could fully recline my seat because no one was seated behind me.

Immigration and customs wasn’t too bad. Many of our fellow JFMFers were frantic as they were struggling to make connecting flights after our late arrival. Quite a few missed these flights and had to be rebooked. While I wasn’t looking forward to the five hour layover, at least I was able to stay relaxed and stressfree.

I’ve hung out in the airport terminal with Jason who is on the same flight to Newark. Due to bad weather on the east coast, our flight is delayed on hour so I won’t get into NJ until 11:30pm and therefore not back to my condo until about 1am I predict. While that stinks, it’s out of my control so I’m just going to go with the flow.

2:00pm: Depart San Francisco

The flight from San Fran had a few moment of turbulence where the captain asked the flight attendants to take their seats, but it wasn't too bad. As this was a domestic flight, we receieved a couple drinks but nothing else. I tried to sleep most of the flight, at least the firt half and just listened to music reflected the rest of the time. At one point, I started thinking through the entire trip from our first arrivals in San Francisco, through getting to Tokyo that first night, meeting so many wonderful people, all of our experiences and the good-byes.

10:30pm: Arrive Newark Airport

We landed a couple minutes after 11:30pm. My sister picked me up, I got my car and arrived home around 1:00am officially bringing the JFMF travel to an end. Now I have to get a follow-on plan updated within two weeks.

I suspect I'll add a couple more updates to this blog as time goes on, maybe even over the next few days as I process everything I've experienced. For those that have been reading for the past 18 days, thank you!