Day 19 - Return home

Okay, let's get this straight...I have this little problem that has kept me up a lot during the night and now I'm supposed to get on a plane for 11 hours and fly to Chicago? Buddha is not a nice fella but I guess I deserve it for that "Buddhalicious" picture I posted.

We go to breakfast and I stay on the BRAT diet - Banana, rice, apples, and toast. Actually, I really just had the BT diet because I have had enough rice and I couldn't find any apples. We had to be on the bus by 9:50 and then left for the airport at 10:00. We arrived at the airport at 11:30, went through customs and by 2:15 I was on the plane headed for home!

Let me tell you about the trip home. I had the option to pay $99 to move to economy plus and have five inches more of leg room. Being cheap, I figure, how much room is five inches worth? I pass on the economy plus seating and take my chances. After all, it really all depends on where your seat is. If you get an aisle or window, you have a little more room to spread out. On this flight, I was aboard a B777. It was a large plane and the seats were arranged as follows: two seats, aisle, five seats, aisle, two seats. If you had to guess, where do you think daddy (me) was sitting? I'm predicting that 92% of you guessed the middle seat in the middle section. Ha! Do you think I have bad karma or something! Well, you are right. Smack dab in the middle. Here's the view...

The good news is that these seats are just a wee bit larger than the plane that I came over to Japan on. Plus, I have the movie screen in front of me and we have our choice of movies by selecting the channel we want to watch. Much different than the flight over...There was XM radio again so that worked out well!

Fifteen minutes into the flight, the captain announced "One of the engines has failed… But don't worry we have three engines left. However, the flight will be an hour longer".

Thirty minutes later, the captain announced "One more engine has failed...But don't worry we have two engines left. However, the flight will be two hours longer."

An hour later the captain announced "One more engine has failed… But don't worry we have one engine left. However, the flight will be three hours longer."

The blonde woman next to me looked over and said "Gee, I hope we don’t lose that last engine, or we'll be up here forever!"

Okay, so that didn't really happen but I thought I'd see how gullible you were! The flight actually went very smoothly and we came in thirty minutes early due to a good tailwind pushing the plane. This was a bit important since I only had ninety minutes in Chicago to go through customs, check my bags again at the airport and get to my gate. When I eventually got to the gate, I had thirty minutes to spare. It would have been a close call...

Here is a visual description of the flight. The first few hours are not documented due to the fact that I was sleeping.


I wasn't quick enough with the camera to get the actual shot I wanted. Just moments before, the map showed "White Butte" located in North Dakota. I just thought that was funny considering all of my butt jokes this trip. If you want to find out more, click here.
	This reads: "We will soon arrive at International Terminal 5. All passengers must clear U.S. Immigration and U.S. Customs and Agriculture."
This is the last Japanese I will see for quite a while.

Here's an interesting fact...We left Tokyo at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 19th. We arrived in Chicago at 11:15 a.m on Thursday, October 19th. If you do the math (and I'll do it for you so you don't mess it up), that means I arrived in Chicago almost 3 hours before I took off in Japan! It is sort of like a Back to the Future episode! If only I could figure out how to do that everywhere, I'd be rich (although I consider myself spiritually rich after this trip)!

Another interesting point...When our first meal was served, it was lunch and the sun was shining. Three hours later, it was completely dark outside since we had reached the international date line. Later in the flight, we got our second meal...breakfast...Shouldn't it be dinner? I guess they are trying to prepare us for the time difference. To top things off, our breakfast options were Japanese noodles or an omelet. When they reached me, I requested an omelet...They ran out of them the aisle before me! Noodles it was...thanks Buddha!

I made it to the gate for the Richmond aircraft and boarded the B737. We boarded and sat on the plane but we weren't moving away from the gate. Ten minutes after scheduled departure time, the captain came on (do you think it is going to be a joke here?) and mentioned that they were changing a light bulb on the nose of the plane. Ten minutes later he came on again stating that there were now three mechanics working with larger tools to get one of the bolts undone. Ten minutes later we were cleared and ready to go.

I thought the flight was two-and-a-half hours long so I leaned against the window (yes...a window seat!) and took a nap. An hour later, I woke up and realized there was only a half hour left! That's right, I forgot about the time change from Chicago to Richmond. Bonus! We were almost at Richmond when the captain came on (another joke?) and said "If only we had gotten here a few minutes earlier, we would be landing. Instead, President Bush and Air Force One is landing in Richmond and we are in a holding pattern until their plane is on the ground. We should be delayed about 20-25 minutes." He was right and we were on the ground 25 minutes later. So, overall, the flight took two-and-a-half hours...thanks again, Buddha! I think I'll make my own fortune and change my luck. Yeah...that's what I'll do. Let's see how you do...Click on one of the fortunes below...

Fortune 1 | Fortune 2 | Fortune 3

How many of you clicked all three? Tried to push your luck, didn't you? Not happy with a great fortune? That's what I figured...Nothing but greedy people in the world. You get a great fortune and you are still not happy. Waaah waaah waaah. If bad things happen to you, it's not my fault. I'm making sure you get a good fortune. See how nice I am?

Coworker Angie was there greeting me at the airport. My wife was in Washington D.C. on business and was unable to pick me up. I guess after 3 weeks away from home, she decided one more day wouldn't hurt! I am very happy to be home yet a part of me already misses Japan. I'll include those thoughts in my reflections...