A good-bye pic on the motorcycle
(less protective gear since it was a short drive
through the suburb)

 Turns out AJ’s morning class was canceled so she was easily able to drop me off at the bus stop. Her mom came over with breakfast - some fried rice and prawn crackers. We also had the leftover pancakes. I gave my bag to the luggage people and got a free bottle of water. Easy enough to board and find my seat. AJ waited until the bus left before driving away. Ah, I’m so lucky to have made such an amazing friend. I felt really welcomed and included. As awesome as AJ is online, she’s even cooler in person. I’m glad I got the chance to do this!

It was rather toasty during my stay since the rain stayed away. We had two short rain showers in the evening, but otherwise it was always sunny despite it being the rainy season. Thus the sunburn, and a bit of a tan. Lucky me!

The bus took about two and a half hours with no traffic. I could see the road and we actually kept moving, gasp! One crazy thing happened in a small traffic jam. It looked like a small truck had bumper hit another car. The car driver was outside yelling at the truck driver. He was so angry. He goes back to his car and pulls a huge pipe and goes to either smash the truck or its driver. Luckily, whatever the truck driver said stopped him and the truck driver gets out! Terrifying!

Bad timing for me though since my flight wasn’t till 9 pm at night and we got to my terminal at 1 pm. Normally I’d just hang out somewhere at the airport, but it had a weird set up. You had to go through security before you could check in. Usually you can check in about four hours before your flight to get access to the nice part of the airport, but here you had to wait till your flight showed up on the screen so that you could show the security guy your itinerary or ticket. So I had to wait an extra two hours. The airport was mildly air-conditioned but jam-packed with people. It was also really dirty, people throwing trash on the floor left and right.

There were some full benches, people sitting on the floor, and no real places to hang out. Definitely the least nicest airport I’ve been in. I think there were just too many people for the size of the airport. At least there was free wifi. I ended up reading the whole time with bathroom runs. My stomach wasn’t dealing well at all. It was hard because the lines were long and I went in with my pack. The rack to drop off your luggage was right at the entrance to the toilets and I didn’t trust that it would remain untouched. I definitely couldn’t do the squat toilets though ha. Somehow I managed all those hours. Once I got past check in, it was much nicer. Many shops. I stopped by Starbucks and ate a small dinner there. I exchanged the rest of my money - about 2000 yen left so in total I only spent about $50 for a week! Everyone kept treating me.

Boarding went fine. Our plane had been downsized though from a super fancy version. The individual screens weren’t even touch-screen. Made me think of the days before individual screens at all. I watched one movie that my students had also recommended to me - Heroine Shikkaku. It was really funny. This the same movie that was partially filmed at Heidi’s Village, the place I went in Yamanashi.