Well, we're back from our trip home. It was great seeing everyone, including meeting a few important new people! (Shoutout to Ethan Bishop who kindly modelled on the lawn for us, even tearing up a flower to keep my camera happy - what a natural!)
The trip home turned out to be much, much more difficult than the trip here. First off we got to the airport about half an hour after we had intended to arrive. Turns out the new motorway isn't quite as fast as we counted on... However, that didn't seem like TOO big of an issue until we stepped inside and saw the line. The queue of people waiting to check-in to Air NZ flights wound through the official queuing lane, then trailled across the depatures hall, all the way up to arrivals. When we joined the line we were so far up that we couldn't hear the announcements and we were standing next to a screen giving flight arrival info (took me a confused minute to figure that out). Our only consolation was the number of Japanese people standing in queue before and behind us - clearly we weren't the only ones worried about making our flight. The line turned out to be a mere standing place - we stood in one spot waiting until an airport official came running up calling out to all people flying to xyz to get to counters a, b and c immediately. We waited, knees bent ready for the sprint, until they told all people going to Osaka to get to counters 14-17 and we raced up there, destroying barriers in our path (I couldn't be bothered re-assembling them behind us, we wanted to check-in asap. I figured whoever made the f*ckup that was that queue could fix the damn barriers!).
At security I was super agitated when I set off the machine with my bangles and had to go through a second time, then got randomly picked for the search with the hand-held machine. I may have given the woman a hard time initially. It didn't help that I was wearing my new heels as they were the heaviest shoes I had with me and they were already hurting after our long wait and subsequent race through the airport.
After I finally got free of security we went to our gate as fast as my heels would let me and arrived with a few minutes before boarding. Phew!
The flight went well, with me having a ridiculously deep sleep for about three hours, maybe more. Don't know what caused it, but that sleep could only be described as 'primo'. None of this shifting half sleep where you wake with a crick in your neck!
However, towards the end of the flight, Jeff pointed out all the white caps on the waves below us. Sure enough, as we got lower the plane started to rock around and some girls behind us started screeching every time the plane lurched. I wasn't scared, but I did start thinking about the sick bag in the pocket in front of me. The pilot spent a long time carefully lowered us down to the runway and when we hit the tarmac great clouds of smoke billowed up from our wheels - clearly we were braking hard. In all fairness, I think the pilot did a good job in horrible weather, but it was certainly the most uncomfortable landing Jeff or I had experienced. As we switched on our cellphones we found out that we were lucky to have got there okay, and that many flights had been cancelled due to the weather conditions.
From touchdown, we had about 45 minutes to collect our luggage, get through customs, buy our tickets and get on our bus. It sounded plenty of time, but if we missed that bus we had about two hours to wait for the next bus, which would make us too late to get our train, which would mean we would have to stay the night in Okayama, which would make Jeff late for work the next day.
Anyway, we got through immigration quickly and raced up to collect our luggage. Which wasn't there. We waited and waited and waited. We weren't the only ones waiting, which was some comfort, but knowing how disorganised Auckland airport had been, we both agreed there was a high chance our luggage had been put on the wrong flight. We also agreed that missing our bus because our luggage had gone to the wrong city would suck. Our bus was leaving at 6:05pm and we watched the minutes tick past on the clock above the luggage conveyor belt. Finally, at 6:03pm, we spotted our bags. I guess the wind that made it hard to land, then rocked the whole plane as we disembarked, must have made it hard to unload the luggage. I said to Jeff we would never make it, but he wanted to try. If we were going to do this thing, we were going to do it properly, so I took off my heels and we started pelting down the airport with me trying not to slip over in my fluffy stockings.
We zoomed through customs (I'm pretty sure we were supposed to declare that salami somewhere??) and ran out the door, with Jeff pushing aside some old guy who was going for a casual stroll in the middle of the exit and me crashing into a woman's trolley. They seemed miffed, but I'm sure as they saw us running out the door, me in my miniskirt with shoes in hand, they probably got the message that we were in a SERIOUS hurry.
We got a horrible shock when the door to outside opened to reveal lines and lines of people waiting for the buses. I've never seen more than three people lining up there, but this time there was the best part of 100 people between us and our bus. I took the trolley while Jeff pushed through to find out what was happening. I took the opportunity to fish my flats out of my suitcase, to the visible relief of the Japanese people staring at me standing shoeless on the concrete (sorry ALTs, I've just taken the foreigners cause in Japan back at least 10 years!). Jeff waded back through the crowd to me, to tell me that they were lined up for a different bus and that I should take the bags to the bus while he went back to grab us tickets. Easier said than done. I scooted along until I found a point where the line thinned a little, then 'sumimasen'ed my way through the crowd. The Japanese laughed and commented 'sugoi!' (great!) when they saw me pushing my trolley with the three suitcases and my handbag. Despite the urgency, I was very tempted to try to yell 'two people!' over my shoulder as I ran up to the bus.
The super helpful guys by the bus loaded our suitcases, then told me to get onto the bus. At least four times. As far as they knew I just didn't like to travel light, but I knew I needed to stall the bus to allow Jeff to get back with our tickets. Luckily people here get out of Jeff's way fast (I wonder why??) and I only had a few minutes of being told by the luggage guys to get on the bus while the driver asked me for my ticket and I gestured vaguely across the crowd saying, 'my husband, my husband'.
On board the bus finally, we left the airport a little late, but very very happy to have made our bus. At the other end we had, again, about an hour between our bus arriving and our train departing, so we relaxed back to read with our legs crossed (we both needed the loo, but hadn't had time at the airport for obvious reasons).
However... the same storm that caused our rocky landing meant the bus was very delayed. We pulled into Okayama Station with two minutes before our train left. This time we both knew there was no way, short of teleportation, that we would make that train (and with teleportation we wouldn't have bought tickets, so we wouldn't be able to exit at the other end). I sat in the bus stop with the luggage while Jeff went up to check our train options. He came back to say there was another train to Fukuyama, but nothing to our stop. At that point we could either stay the night in Okayama and take the train tomorrow morning (making Jeff late for work. Luckily my school had a day off anyway), or take a train to Fukuyama and taxi it from there. I vied for the second option, partly because it was cheaper, but mainly because I was suddenly dying to have a morning where I didn't have to repack my suitcase.
After all our efforts to get home fate finally smiled on us and the train turned out to go onwards to the stop by my apartment - although Jeff suspects that perhaps they don't usually stop there, but did it to accomodate us because we were asking for the Bingo-Akasaka train.
At the train station the plan was for one of us to go down to the apartment and get my car, so we could load the suitcases and drive them home. It's only about a km from the station to my apartment, but Jeff's suitcase has bung wheels that only veer left, so he has to carry it, and mine has a broken handle so you have to hang onto the cloth handle, which means it constantly bangs your heels and slides your heels out of your shoes. How I envy the Japanese with their beautiful matching, monogrammed luggage sets. We only use out suitcases for the trips to NZ, so it doesn't seem worth investing in new ones, but at midnight at the train station new suitcases seemed like a bloody good idea!
Anyway, at the station it was agreed I would stay with the bags while Jeff went down to the car. For once I think we were both arguing to do the walk - Jeff feared falling asleep while I wasn't looking forward to the cold However, as Jeff disappeared round the corner, an angel appeared. The angel was disguised as a taxi driver, in an empty taxi. Gratefully we threw our bags in the boot and jumped in the car. For the grand total of 640 yen (about $10), we were delivered to our front door in only a few minutes.
And there ends the grand tale of our travel home. Sometime before 1am Jeff finished his shower and I finished my toast (priorities!) and we fell into our futon, fast asleep (in case you're grossed out, I made up for not showering before bed by washing my sheets the next day!).
Wednesday I spent doing laundry. An incredible amount of laundry. There was our holiday clothing, all the new shopping we had done, a full load left from before we left and two huge bags of stuff Emma gave me just before we left. I did do other things too, but my day was at least 80% laundry.
Today was my first day back at work. I was really surprised to find no-one commented on my newly dyed hair. It looked so strange before I went home that I expected lots of comments on the change. But after having a good look in the mirror I decided that maybe it's because it does look kinda natural right now - just the right amount of yellow to the blonde to look right with my skin. So maybe it's so natural-looking that they have forgotten what my hair was like before (Jeff reckons he forgets my previous hair within two days of a change!). Alternatively it looks bad and they are just trying to be polite and avoid commenting :P
The other surprise today was all the staff changes. I had forgotten that when I returned there would be lots of new teachers here. I was particularly struck by the number of young teachers we have in our school - although of course 'young' is relative and they may be 45 for all I know. Maybe I should use the term 'babyfaced' instead. The best news with the staff changes is that my grumpy old supervisor has left (no more summer BO!) and my friend Wasada-sensei, who sits next to me, has become a full-time teacher and has been given the job of supervising me. Considering she is always the one who gives me the heads up on what's going on, translates emails for me and helps me filling out any forms I need to do, it's nice that she will finally get the credit for it! I have finally joined the ranks of ALTs with cool supervisors. Yay! :D
Hope you are all doing well. To my NZ peeps who I caught up with, it was lovely to see your beautiful faces (particularly that especially beautiful bride!) and to those I didn't manage to see, I'm so sorry we couldn't meet up and hope we get to see each other in October. xo
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