Day 20 – Last Day

I’m currently writing this entry 2 hours into a 9.5 hour flight, to try and pass some of the time. I’m by no means a bad flyer, as in I’m not afraid of it, I just have a problem with sitting still for this amount of time with mostly nothing but a set of headphones to keep me occupied.

Last night was our final meal together as a group of 12, and I cannot describe how much I will miss seeing this group of people everyday. It’s amazing how close we’ve been able to get in the short amount of time we’ve known each other! Granted I knew a few already. I am so glad I got to share this holiday with this amazing crew! There were definitely moments of tension within both groups, but of course there would be with 1, such a large group, and 2, being so close with people for any length of time when you’re not used to it will make most people snap at one point or another. The tension never lasted long though. 

We started with an extremely early morning, with Drew and myself having alarms set for 5.30 am. We were up and ready from about 6.30, which left us plenty of time to do the double checks, triple checks, and even the quadruple checks of the room, ensuring we left nothing behind. We had discussed meeting down stairs at 7, but we were ready a little early, so went down and took care of checking out as well as our phone bill to the bank yesterday (international calls are stupid). Between Drew, Tim and myself, we had bought and extra suitcase to bring all our goodies home in, but lugging and extra suitcase around is a huge pain in the arse! Getting down to the lobby was a headache, so I am eternally grateful that Tim was able to take the extra, leaving Drew and I only to look after our two large suitcases, and our two carry on.

We had finally decided that we’d be taking the Limousine bus to the airport, which left from Shinjuku Station at 8.00 – so as soon as the rest of the crew were down and checked out, there was no messing about. Off we were, the strangest looking group making a god awful noise with all of our suitcase wheels dragging along the asphalt, receiving strange looks from everyone we walked by, slowly making our way to the station. We have made good use of the buddy system on this trip, after constantly loosing either Sarma or Lobada; we have been extra thorough in our checks! Managing to keep track of everyone, we arrived at the staircase down to the station where we usually get on. But having suitcases, we were eager to avoid stairs as much as possible, so instead of going down where we knew and then changing sides of the platform, we decided to wing it. A great idea when we have a deadline. So we crossed the road and kept walking, looking for an entrance to the station that would put us on the platform we needed. Luckily, we managed to find said entrance, although there was no avoiding stairs. Down one flight of stairs with suitcases wasn’t so bad. But we were yet to reach our destination. We needed to catch a train for 2 stops, and then find the bus terminal.

And of course, more stairs. 

I think we all regretted buying so many souvenirs at the point we were standing at the bottom of a 3-tier staircase, with probably 50 stairs. It was pretty sweet to see the group helping one another with this small task (but feeling as tired as we all are, it was a huge task). With everyone up at the top of the stairs, we were finally at the bus terminal, where one enthusiastic gentleman came across and made sure we weren’t lost.

We handed over our booking information, and our bags, and headed over to pay for our tickets. With only a small amount of confusion, and a little worry that one of our bags would end up at the wrong terminal, we all piled onto the bus for the 1.5 hour trip to Narita airport. It started off okay, with nice chats and laughter as we all started sharing probably not the most flattering photos that we managed to capture of each other. But Drew, suffering from travel sickness, unsurprisingly, started feeling ill. He managed to hold it together for the majority of the trip, all up until we reached gate one, where Lobada was getting off (he’s travelling back to America, so was leaving from a different terminal than we were). So our goodbyes weren’t great, as I’m trying my best to look after Drew as much as I can with minimal supplies while on a bus. So with that, we lost our first crew member. Bye Lobada!

It wasn’t too much longer until we were able to get off the stupid bus. Also, thanks to the guys who helped get our shit off the bus when I was getting Drew out! We went through the usual airport stuff… Checking in, weighing bags (I was under! Surprisingly), going through security, where I had to remove my shoes, because for some reason I set the machines off, and through customs. We got a bite to eat, did a little bit of duty free shopping, and we were ready to board. It was here that we broke off into our smaller groups again! As we booked at different times, we’re basically on opposite ends of the plane. With everyone around me either asleep, reading or watching movies with headphones on, I might go down and visit them soon. It is currently 4.09, we’re due to land at 32 minutes past midnight, and should be arriving to nice weather of 20 degrees or so, which will be the warmest we’ve been in 3 weeks! I will truly miss Japan, but cherish the memories I’ve created and the friends I’ve made. I didn’t want to come home, but damn, I miss my cat.