Day 31: Flying Home

I said I wanted to write a final post this year unlike last year... 
Sorry it only took me two weeks longer than it should have...

So I had meant to write my final blog post sooner, but it's been just over a week since I got back and I still need to write my last post! Well here goes!

So on the final evening of my trip, I had started packing but was still trying to wrap up doing my laundry, so I ended up only partially packing. What a mistake! I should have just left my last day of laundry dirty instead since drying it took a long time. My AirBnb had a washing machine but to dry laundry, I needed to hang it up in the bathroom and turn on the drying ventilation mode. I think every time I did it, it took roughly 4 hours to finish a load of laundry.

Anyway, I decided to sleep at 1 AM so I could get up a few hours before I had to check out at 11. I had thought that 3 hours would be sufficient to finish packing, but I actually ended up cutting it pretty close.

The main issue was that I just had too much stuff to fit in my luggage. My secondary concern was that my luggage was also too heavy so even if I ended up fitting everything in, I would still have to pay an overweight fee. In hindsight, I should have just bought another luggage since I ended up taking a taxi to the airport anyway, so managing 3 bags wouldn't have been an issue anyway (except for maybe once I arrived in Seattle?)

After much trial and tribulation, I did manage to get most everything into my bags. All of my clothing, plushies, and other fabric-type things were stuffed into vacuum bags from Daiso and taped up to prevent air leaking in. A neck massager I bought had its box thrown away. When I still didn't have enough space, I did the unthinkable and began to take the cheaper figures out of their boxes. For a couple, I threw away the inner packing plastic and just flattened the boxes, so I could at least keep the box. For another 3, I keep the figures in the plastic and just folded the boxes down.

By 10:45 I had finished packing (although it had been pretty stressful) and started wrapping up by taking out my trash and recycling to the garbage room.

I ended up with my backpack, my carry-on, a big luggage, and a random bag of stuff that hadn't fit in any of my bags.

My flight was set to board at 5 PM, so it was a little not ideal that my check out time was 11 AM. Rather than just leave my luggage unguarded in the elevator room, I decided to just head to the airport. The taxi to Narita was like a little over an hour and very expensive. I would definitely suggest using Haneda if you ever fly into Tokyo since it's way closer.

At the airport, I gave up both of my luggages to the JAL check-in desk but did end up having to pay the ¥10,000 (roughly $60) since my larger luggage was 32 kg and the limit for free luggage was 23 kg. I think for that price I could have probably found another luggage and put some of the stuff into it but I basically just wanted to relax lol The one really nice thing about being at the airport so early was that the check-in area was absolutely empty so I was able to basically get everything sorted within minutes of being at the airport

After looking around for a few minutes, I was able to find a coin locker and tossed the rest of my stuff into it. Since I had a few hours, I wanted to grab lunch and walk around for a bit unencumbered. My backpack itself probably weighed more than my small luggage since I had 2 MacBooks, my battery bank, Steam Deck, headphones, etc. on me, so I was happy to get rid of the weight for a bit.

I felt a little weird walking around so lightly, especially since even on normal days when I leave my house (even in Seattle), I usually have some kind of small backpack on. It stressed me out slightly too, since I was like what if I forget and go through security without my stuff lol

Anyway, the airport had a couple of observation decks that you could use to check out some of the planes as they came and went.

Of course there is a vending machine there as well

I stayed for a while to kill some time and to cool off after lugging my stuff around previously. I did see some planes but they weren't doing anything particularly cool or anything, which was a bit of a surprise considering a few of the watchers at the observation deck had cameras with huge lenses to take pictures

They're just like regular planes...?

I still had a ton of time so I ended up sitting down to get tonkatsu for lunch. It was kind of funny because I couldn't remember which sauces to use for the pork cutlet and which to use for the salad so I was watching a couple of business men as they were getting their meal. One was considerably older than the other and the younger one seemed to meticulously followed the lead of the older. Like at first the younger guy had looked like he was going to immediately dig in but then the older guy squeezed a lemon over his own meal and then the younger guy put down his chopsticks and did the same (thinking back on it, they must not have gotten the regular pork cutlet). Luckily, I was able to discern the proper sauces and way to do things watching them but I thought it was a little funny.

With nothing left to do before security, and with 2 or 3 hours remaining until it was time to board my flight, I decided to pick up my luggage and head through the security checkpoint. Security and the tax free both took like 5 minutes total so I ended up having a lot of free time but was not super happy to be lugging around my heavy backpack. I asked if there were any coin lockers past security and the information desk told me no, which actually kind of makes sense to me from a security perspective I guess.

Luckily, I did have lounge access since I had gold status on Alaska Airlines (at least I think that's why I had access to the JAL Sakura Lounge lol). The lounge was basically empty when I arrived so I was able to explore freely. It was actually pretty large but I didn't take photos for some reason. I think the reason it was empty was because JAL flights leave Narita later in the day? I could probably fact check that but I won't!

The lounge actually did end up having lockers that I could use so I took advantage of that to pop back out to the airport so I could check out the duty free section.

And these lockers were free!

I mainly just wanted to see if I could get a bag to hold some of the loose items I hadn't been able to fit in my luggage (and to lighten my backpack a little). In a nice turn of events, the tax free area even had its own anime mascots.

I wonder if the anime mascot trend would help sell more merchandise at random places in the States? Would you like to go to a car wash or a car wash with anime characters??

I was able to get a reusable bag to use and it was even zippered. My only choice was Sanrio characters but it was fine with me although I think I would have preferred something else

After getting back to the lounge, I ended up killing the rest of my time playing Balatro on my Steam Deck. It's a really fun Poker roguelike deck building game. I'm no expert so I can't explain it that well but I definitely recommend trying it!

The 10 hour flight ended up going by pretty quickly. Although I napped for a few hours, I spent the bulk of the flight playing Balatro and watching YouTube videos so I was pretty exhausted by the time we landed. I probably should have tried to sleep a bit more since the flight departed Japan at around 6 PM and landed at around 9 AM so I needed to stay up all day again.

After waiting for my luggage for 20 minutes, I waited in the customs line for 20 minutes, and then was free to go home finally. Usually, I would try to take the light rail and then transfer to a bus to go home so that I could save like $60 but I didn't want to have to deal with my luggage on that kind of trip (which is why I avoided it on the way to Narita as well) so I ended up Ubering. There is actually another tip (?) I learned about Uber too. Usually at SEA, you have to walk to the uber pickup zone in the parking garage and wait for the your Uber there. BUT if you order Uber Black, they will just pick you up directly at the the arrivals doors for like regular passenger pickup. Walking anywhere trying to wrangle all of my like 50 kg of stuff was annoying, so I obviously just did this option.

After a long day of travel, I made it to my own apartment and luckily nothing crazy seemed to have happened there either. I hadn't accidentally left the oven on for a month or anything.

My sleep schedule also ended up being a bit wrecked too. Although I wanted to stay up all day I ended up napping from like 4 to 8 PM and then not sleeping til 4 AM again. Then the next day I woke up at 4 PM and felt super depressed about sleeping away the entire day. (Luckily I've basically fixed this 2 weeks later)

Taking a look at Google Photos's location feature, I can see that my exploration of Japan still has a long way to go.

My coverage is a little better in the Tokyo area though.

But even in the main central Tokyo area, it's not like I have been everywhere or even to all the prominent neighborhoods. I think you could live in Tokyo probably for years and not explore everything in the Tokyo area or even the very inner wards. I think next time I come I'll try to stay in Osaka and maybe only for 2 or 3 weeks at a time so that my luggage doesn't get so out of control. In the first place it's not like I can just keep infinitely bringing merch back to my apartment but it's... basically fine... for now. LOL

Anyway, that's the end of this year's travel blog. Hopefully I see you again sooner rather than later! Although maybe next time I really won't blog...