Japan

I woke up this morning in a bed. This is a nice change from always using a futon on the floor of Manami's parent's house. Breakfast was provided as well, so I went downstairs and had a little bit from their buffet. This hotel is nice, and it's owned and operated by Amada. I guess you're doing well if you're able to open up a hotel just for your customers to use for free. However, there aren't many people around today.

After breakfast, I met up with Yoshi, my guide. They have a photographer to take a few pictures, and then I begin the tour of their facility. Well, it's more of a tour of their current machines, and not so much the facility. I didn't see any of how they actually made their machines, but that's expected.

When we enter the building the show room is in, it's beautiful. Apparently the previous chairman designed this building himself, and wow did he do a nice job. It's very comfortably asian, but also industrial at the same time. It really is incredible. When you first walk in, there is a giant bamboo tree in front of you. I guess you call it a tree. Anyway, it was around 20 feet tall. This is what sets the tone for the Show Room.

Before I was taken to see any machines, they took me upstairs into an office and did a quick movie about Amada on the screen. Then they gave me a power point presentation about the company, saying the breakdown of their sales, company history, anual revenue... Things like that. It was just a big commercial about Amada.

After the presentation was over, we walked back downstairs to officially begin the tour of the machines. Yoshi took me around and explained things (He seemed to be the only one present that day that could speak English). If I had any questions, he would quickly translate it for the various machine operators, and then let me know the response.

Our machine tour began on the laser side of the building. Amada's showroom is split up into two sections. Lasers and Mechanical. They have a LOT of lasers as well, ranging from a 24" x 48" table up to massive 96" x 180". Each laser also performs differently. Some are your cheaper entry level models, some are the higher end Fiber Optic (new type) lasers. Each have their pros and cons as far as their practical use in the real world. For example, fiber optic lasers don't cut nearly as hot as conventional ones. As a result, your parts won't warp from the heat. However, a fiber laser doesn't cut as nicely as a normal laser. It typically leaves a little "slag" on the back of the part. Slag is metal that has been melted away, but hardens before it actually leaves the part completely.

At the same time, a Fiber Laser's cut path is only 4-5 thousandths thick, where as a conventional laser is around 15 thousandths. It isn't much, but if you're doing a tremendous amount of tiny parts, fiber is your answer. On top of that, fiber can cut materials that were previously untouchable by conventional lasers. The down side to all that is they cost a lot of money.

This side of the facility was nice, but I realistically can't see our shop picking up a laser any time soon. Especially when other companies out there are able to do any laser work we need for pennies. With that in mind, I asked to be taken over to the punch press side of the tour.

I said mention sides, because the way their showroom is split is into sides of a building. The left side is lasers, and they're in a giant room. In the middle, there's a bunch of circular picnic tables. Or maybe just discussion tables. It's a casual layout. Then the right side of the building in another giant room are their punch presses, brakes, welding equipment and various robots for operating the equipment.

This side was definitely more up our alley. They showed me 4 different punch presses. The differences between them were table sizes, tooling changes, & servo or ram driven. Every one of these had brush tables to keep the material scratch free. They showed off how their punches/dies are never in contact with the part until they do a hit. It works similar to our punch, except the dies rest down out of the way so they can never scratch the part surface. Then they quickly lift into place before each hit.

These punches are incredibly fast. Both the ram driven style, as well as the servo style. I would say they are easily 300% faster than ours in normal operation, and they're clean. Amada is trying to go with an oil-free approach, and it seems to work. The machines also have a deburring tool built into them. It's a ball that rolls along the edges of your cuts to push down any sort of burr that might have developed. Works quite well. It also allows the machine to dimple your parts.

Next up, they had a fiber optic welding setup, which is really neat. It welds a part and leaves it not needing any sort of finishing. The welds look like a bend, and they'll leave a 2B or Mirror finish at the same time. It's damn impressive.

After going through the mechanical side, it was time to leave. We sat down and had tea in their lounge area, then they grabbed my luggage and loaded me into the cab to leave. The streets in Honatsugi are more narrow than some of the other ones I've encountered. You're driving through the street with maybe a foot on each side of your car, total. And you have to turn corner with that spacing. The cab dropped me off at the train station, and I waited for my train to Tokyo.

My train into Tokyo wasn't bad. I was staying in the section called Akihabara, or Electric City. This is definitely nerd central when it comes to Tokyo. This place is all about video games, Anime and Manga. My hotel was a short walk from the train station, and my room was tiny. It was maybe 10 feet by 10 feet. And for that small space, it was $170 (after tax) for the night. Ouch.

After dropping my stuff off at the Hotel (I arrived a few hours before check in), I left for the next part of Tokyo, called Kanda. It is incredibly close. The very next spot on the train. Later on I would find out that it takes me around 30-40 minutes to walk from the middle of Kanda to my hotel.

In Kanda, I met up with a friend from the internet. He's a big nerd, so this part of town is exactly what he was after. I also learned that I'm not nearly as nerdy as I thought I was. Most of the things available in town didn't interest me. I was more than happy watching other people play these brand new (pretty awesome) arcade games, and gladly walked past the various Anime and Manga shops.

After meeting up, we immediately went in search for ramen for lunch. In doing so, I learned something new. I thought that all ramen was the same. It isn't. Different types of ramen, use different types of broth. We ended up going to a miso-based ramen place, and it was hand's down the best noodles I've ever had. The broth was oily, due to the miso and the fat from the pork, but it didn't matter. It was SO GOOD! It was also incredibly filling. I learned that, in Japan, you are to eat everything (including drinking the broth when you're done). I'm not quite ready for that, so my broth went mostly untouched (except what stuck to the noodles as I ate).

This meal was very filling, but so worth it. That ramen was otherworldly. I wish there was an opportunity to go back for more this trip. Oh well, can't win 'em all. The next thing I learned is that ramen, while incredibly filling, is slightly fake. We walked non-stop for the next 3-4 hours, before returning to my hotel and getting my room. At this point, I was no longer full. In fact, I was looking forward to the "All you can eat" BBQ dinner I was told about. However, before it was time for dinner, we had one more stop to make.

Next to the station in Akihabara, is a large vertical mall. It's like 6-8 floors, and each floor has a bunch of smaller shops. In one of these shops, I found a model for this robot anime that I watch, called Gundam. The model in question is from an older series (Gundam: Wing), and it's called the Epyon. This model is roughly 1000 pieces that need to be removed from the molding thing, smoothed up, then installed onto the Gundam. I was told this will take me more than a day to fully assemble. I can't wait, the Model looks awesome and it'll fit great up on my window sill next to the computer.

When we finished buying this Gundam model and a few tools to assemble it (Total came to about $48, I think), we took a train to yet another part of Tokyo, called Ginza. Where as Akihabara is Electric City, Ginza is Money Town. This is an extremely wealthy part of Tokyo, not at all unlike Manhattan. My friend knows of a BBQ restaurant in Ginza that has an all you can eat special, but they have to like you to give you this special. It's no longer listed on the menu, at least.

For right around $80/each, you get as much meat and alcohol as you want. The special is timed at 90 minutes, however, last call is at the 60 minute mark. Our meal started off with a big sampler of about 10 to 15 different types of meat that they serve. Like the restaurant last night, you have a small grill on your table to cook your own food with. On top of that, each type of meat has a little name tag next to it. After eating all of the "sampler plate (they only serve you 1 of these), you must then order whatever else you would like using those name tags from the sampler plate. You are only able to order 1 type of meat per person, and the type is 4 pieces. As a result, we were always bringing 8 pieces of meat to the table so that we could quickly eat them and bring the next set over.

Dinner was delicious, and I was INCREDIBLY stuffed. I thought I still had room for some more, but a few minutes later (while not eating), my brain finally got the signal that enough is enough. I felt like I had a brick in my belly the remainder of the night. I also learned that the two of us ended up going through around $600 in meat. Not bad for an $80 all you can eat dinner.

As we slowly hobbled through town, both slightly inebriated, but very full, we encountered a group of 3 people on the street that we started to talk to. I find it incredibly easy to walk up to strangers in Japan, and start a conversation. Even if I have no idea what they're saying, these conversations usually go quite well. I've had plenty of people give me easy to follow directions, despite not knowing a single word that they said. It's a really city like that.

Anyway, we shot the shit with this group of 3 for like 20 minutes before we continued on our path back to my friend's apartment. Where he lives in the city, the rent would be ridiculously high. To make it easier, landlords do a house sharing type of thing. Each apartment has a common area that everyone can use (kitchen, bathroom, relaxation spot with TV). Then you also have a private bedroom that's around 10x10 to do whatever you want with. The doors for your private bedrooms are always locked.

When we got close to my friend's house, we stopped by 7-11 to buy some snacks and some alcohol. We were just going to sit around in his common area and chat with whomever was there at the time. The snacks are a "friendly lure" to invite the other room mates to sit with you and drink. Sitting around talking with his room mates was a lot of fun His room mates are from all over the world. There was an Israel guy, a guy from Australia, a guy from another part of Japan, a girl from... some other country, I don't remember. There was also a girl from Switzerland there.

We talked about everything, from Anime, movies, music, Gundam models, what we do for work. Everything. It was a lot of fun. I decided it was time to head back to my hotel in Akihabara (his apartment is in Kanda) around 12:15am. My friend was willing to take me half way back, which is fine with me. I'm only going down 1 road, so it's easy enough. The city is completely closed down at this time, though. So much for it being like Vegas. Anyway, I walked past MAYBE 20 people total on my 30-40 minute walk home. The best part of the walk is how peaceful the street was this time of night. I was able to relax and enjoy the scenery, as opposed to rushing through the sea of people to get anywhere.

I was finally in bed around 2am after getting back to the hotel, checking the message boards on my laptop, then taking a shower. What a long day, and I am exhausted. Here's hoping that I sleep for tomorrow.

I woke up at 7am, MUCH earlier than expected. Damn you, bladder! Unfortunately, I was awake at that point, and couldn't get back to bed. Plus, I still needed to pack my stuff before I checkout at 11am. I went downstairs and purchased breakfast. It was a typical Japanese dish, exactly what I get every day with Manami's parents.

Next thing I realized, there was only 50 minutes left until checkout. I used this time to run back into the city and buy Natsumi a little Gundam key chain thing. I figured she would like that, plus it gives her a Gundam to play with as well. It doesn't have any moving parts, so that's a plus. She seems to like it anyway.

After power walking through the city and quickly cleaning up, I left the hotel with 1 minute to spare. Not bad. Check out was really simple. As you leave the elevator, there was a slotted box that you drop your key into. That's it, you're checked out. I walked over to the train station and bought a ticket back to Niigata. The game plan was to take the bullet train (shinkansen) back to Niigata with Ryohei and his wife, Takae. Speaking to Manami on the phone, I remembered that the train departed at something 16. Accidentally, I chose a ticket for an hour earlier than expected. I didn't learn that until I was arriving at Niigata and Manami said that Ryohei didn't see me prior to getting on the train with him. Oh well, this gave me even more time to read the Mike Tyson autobiography. I'm really enjoying this book. Almost 1/2 way through it by now.

Anyway, when the 2nd train arrived, I met up with Ryohei and his wife. We expected Manami's father to be at the train station waiting for us. That wasn't the case. We ended up having to wait an additional 10-15 minutes for him to show up. I like Manami's brother, but we don't really have too much in common. As a result, we aren't close. That said, he's the 2nd best in the family at speaking English. After we get back home I'm really going to focus on learning Japanese myself, rather than relying on everyone else to learn English. It was selfish to assume they would learn for me and not the other way around.

For dinner today, we had the amazing sushi that I've come to enjoy up here. Manami's family is friends with a Sushi chef that's right around the corner, so we go there for a big meal every visit. This was tasty and filling at the same time. I don't remember every type of Sushi included, but I have a picture of the platters so you can see.

After dinner, I was stuffed, but Ryohei wanted to go out and drink. This is a great opportunity, so I joined him. We met up with a friend of his from middle school, then went to a bar/restaurant thing. This is when I learned that bars like the ones in the US, don't really exist in Japan. Instead, each group of people gets their own private room with a table, and waitresses bring the alcohol to you. It sounds like a cheap way to get tips, but in Japan you DON'T tip for anything. It's kind of nice paying the exact price and that's it. They'll even go so far as to track you down and give you the extra money if you try to tip them. I'm really not used to that part of our culture, because it becomes expected for almost everything in America.

We drank for a few hours, and I got comfortably drunk. I'm not stumbling around, but I'm definitely slurring random words here and there. And we talked about everything. Work, hobbies, goals in life, life in general. It was a nice time. I also learned that Drinking to excess is a lot more acceptable in Japan. A lot of people do it, but that's because they have such a great public transportation system set up. You can take trains and buses almost everywhere, and they don't cost much money (in most cases). Jumping around Tokyo was $1.70 each ticket. You can't beat that. However, the longer rides on the bullet train are $100, but it's still more cost effective than flying.

Ryohei called his father to pick all of us up from the bar. Otherwise, it would have been a 40 minute walk. I was happy his dad was available. After making it back to the house, I took a shower and went to bed.

I Woke up after not sleeping nearly enough. These past 2 drinking late nights have taken a lot out of me. Today's going to suck. On top of that, a cold that started up a few days ago is now in full force. Fortunately, we have nothing planned, so can lounge around and rest.

We had a big family breakfast with Ryohei and Takae joining us. They're headed back to Tokyo late this afternoon, but it's fun to be around them in the mean time. They were talking about American TV shows like CSI and others. I told them about my favorite series, The Wire and also Game of Thrones. Ryohei has Amazon Prime, so he's going to start watching them right away for free (Amazon did a deal with HBO to get their older content).

Natsumi spent the morning and early afternoon playing with Takae. She seemed to really like her, and we enjoyed the break at the same time. A little before they left for Tokyo, we had a Family Picture Time, where we each set up cameras on auto to take a bunch of pictures of everyone there. After that, I was pretty tired so went into my room to nap.

That was short lived because Natsumi ran in and jumped on top of me. She wanted to keep playing. I did some airplane with her (picked her up with my legs and flew her around) and that seemed to calm her down for now. Oh well, I was done napping at that point. I decided to sit around and watch some Anime for a while. A little later we went to the mall. Manami wanted to buy some stuff, and I can't pass up the soft serve ice cream. I'm not sure if I said what makes it so good over here, but I think I've finally narrowed it down. It's extremely light. The ice cream itself is more fluffly than the sludge we sell as soft serve. Also, when you eat a cone of it, it doesn't sit like a brick in your stomach. It digests quickly.

There are a couple Japanese versions of American food at this mall. When we walked past the food court area, I saw a Baskin Robbins, Subway, KFC & Starbucks. They looked very similar to their American counterparts, but were different none the less. When we finished up at the mall, we went over to the Grocery store to shop for dinner. Manami was still in a Sushi type of mood, so we bought a bunch of Sashimi. That's the raw meat of a fish without the rice, where as Sushi is the raw meat sitting on a rice mound.

Dinner was good, and it feels like I'm already starting to get past my cold. At least the medicine that Manami's dad has been giving me is working. It's drying me out a good deal, allowing me to breath easier. The medicine here is strange. It's packets of powder, not in a gel cap or whatever. You rip open the pack and pour the powder into your mouth, then wash it down. Almost like eating those sugar candy things except they don't taste like sugar at all. I went to bed earlier tonight to try and catch up on lost sleep.

Today was arguably the most relaxed of them all. At least in the morning. We woke up and had breakfast. Shortly there after, I sat down to write my journal from the previous two days. I also downloaded the latest podcasts and all that type of stuff. Gotta keep up to date, even while on vacation.

Manami said that she felt like going to the store, but we were going to have to walk. The store is around a mile away, but it's a nice morning and we walked it. I realize that we've been extremely lucky with the weather while out here. It's only rained one day, and that was over and back to sunny again by noon at the latest. It has rained at least one other time, but it was in the night while we were in bed. And you had no clue it happened by the time morning came. As far as temperature and humidity goes, it's been very similar to the Philadelphia area. Hovering between the mid 70's to 80's the entire time we've been here. Some days are a little humid, others aren't. It's just like home.

Anyway, the store that we walked to is a little Bed Bath & Beyond type of place, but it isn't a chain. Manami bought a few hand towels for our bathroom, and a couple of hair accessories. She saw a purse that she liked as well, but it was easily the size of a rolled sleeping bag, so I told her that was silly and she put it back. I mean, it would probably still look big if she were my size, as opposed to her tiny 5'2 self.

After getting back from the store, I was really tired, so I laid down to take a nap. The early part of my day was mostly influenced by being in nap mode. I didn't technically fall asleep, but I did relax, which was nice. When I got up, Manami told me that she felt like going to an antique shop this time around, and I passed on that. She went, but I stayed at the house browsing a few message boards. It was uneventful.

We were planning on going to this nice Italian place, Le Florida, that we've been to on both of our previous trips, but they were closed today. Normally he has off on Monday's, but yesterday was some odd Japanese holiday, so he took off instead today. We'll try to make it over there tomorrow or Thursday. I really would like to go there before we go home. His personal pan pizza is easily in the top 5 I've ever had. As a result of Le Florida being closed, we ended up getting MossBurger again. Oh well, it was good the first time we had it.

A little later on, Manami's father told me that I would be going to get acupuncture again today. That's fine with me. I did feel pretty good after I had it done the first time. This session was a little different than last. I spent the majority of it laying face down, while she stabbed the pins all over my neck. Some of them hurt (quite a lot), while others were barely noticeable. The goal with acupuncture is to irritate the nerve so that it stops hurting in other places and focuses on the current pain, then when you remove the pin, the pain is gone from both spots.

The acupuncture treatment went good enough. Yes, I hurt a lot for a few of the pins because they were hitting the nerve perfectly, but I still fought through it. Then it was time to come back home. The strange thing about acupuncture is it makes you really tired after you've had it. I didn't notice that the first time around, but the girl who performed it on me did say that I would probably get tired. Sure enough, I'm exhausted right now. And with that, I'm going to bed.

I was wrong thinking that yesterday was relaxed. We had absolutely nothing going on today at all. Spent the morning watching Wreck It Ralph with Natsumi, then sat around some more... and some more.

Eventually we decided to go out and get our lunch from the grocery store. They have a bakery section that completely blows away everything I've ever experienced before. Not only in taste, but also in selection. And I'm talking breads, not just sweets. This place is like the holy grail of baked goods. Anyway, we chose some stuff and went home. I got on a scale today, wondering what I'm down to. I was 194 when I left and... 202 now. What the fuck? I blame Manami's parents for that, for constantly stuffing me with extra fruits and such after I courteously eat everything they put on my plate. I need to say no from now on. Unfortunately, "now on" is only tomorrow.

I thought about something today. This country isn't nearly as short as we make it out to be in America. Yes, there are short people, but I would assume that on average, they are only around 2 inches shorter than we are. And there are definitely some giants out there. I'm 6'4, and I've had people pass me that I have to look up to. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. The only down side regarding height over here is that almost all of the "old" doorways over here are only 6 feet tall. As a result, I have to duck through pretty much every door I go through. Yes, modern doors are more up to the American standard of 6'8, but there are still plenty of older ones out there. I've managed to smack my head quite a few times over here, and I was doing great until last Friday when I got my first cut. Since then, I've gotten a 2nd cut and broke the scab off of the first. Ugh.

Anyway, we packed up the majority of our stuff to make it easy for tomorrow. We're going to fly from Niigata to Narita tomorrow. It's a 2 1/2 hour flight, but that's still better than the 2 trains we would need to take to get to Narita from here. Also, Manami's father is paying for the flight so that we can stay at their house even longer. If you weren't sure, Narita is the city that the Tokyo Airport is located. I'm not sure why they call it the Tokyo airport, but it is what it is.

We're spending the night tomorrow at a hotel in Narita, then flying home mid-morning on Friday.

This morning started off a kind of bad. I woke up around 4am to use the restroom. Went back to bed, but stayed wide awake for the next 2 hours, finally "waking up" around 6am. I've been doing something similar for the past few days without any real reason for doing so. I guess it's like my body's way to begin preparing to swap myself 13 hours into the past come tomorrow.

We woke up and had breakfast with the family. This would be the last time everyone sat together for a year or so. It was a nice enough breakfast. Nothing special, but that's fine with me. After breakfast, they tried to stuff me (yet again) with Edamame, Pineapple & Japanese Pear. I took a bite or two from each, but then turned down the rest. It's a start. I'll eat a lot less when I'm home anyway, so the extra weight "should" come off quick enough. I feel like a chick worrying about 10 lbs, but whatever. It took a long time to go under 200 lbs, and I don't want to be back over that threshold.

This morning we packed all of our stuff up and put away the bedroom we were sleeping in at Manami's parent's house. I say put away, because we were sleeping on futons on the floor, so we folded them up and put them back in the closet. This entire trip, I purchased a few extra things and that's it. All of them are small, too. Somehow, our bags weigh about 10 lbs heavier than before, and are stuffed to the brim. I blame Manami for buying all kinds of crap while we were gone. Oh well, it's only $25 extra at the airport for the heavier bags.

Speaking of airport, Manami's father decided to buy us tickets to fly from Niigata to Narita (Tokyo Airport). It's a 1 hour flight as opposed to a little more than 3 1/2 hours via train (add a layover swapping between a bullet train at Tokyo Station and a much slower train that goes 1 hour from the station to the airport). I was happy to be able to fly. It made our lives a lot easier. Our flight was departing Niigata at 2:55pm, and we arrived at the airport just after 2pm. This is cutting it close. We check in a boarding passes, and have them check our bags. Suddenly Manami's father appears and starts causing an issue with our bags being checked. He's hell bent on having us save that extra $25 because, even though they are on separate days, the remainder of our flights are "connecting" from Narita. I don't understand it, but he's very determined. We're forced to sit down and wait for the ticket agent to call up ANA (All Nippon Airways) headquarters and determine if our second flight is going to qualify for the same $25 that we're paying right now. This is all petty shit (her dad loves saving a buck... even if it isn't his buck this time) and it nearly causes us to miss our flight.

I'm watching the clock tick by. 2:15... 2:25... 2:35... Enough with this stupid $25, just let us go through security and get to our plane. A minute or two later, the ticket agent comes over to us and just tells us to go up through security. She'll find us after the fact (before we board the plane) if anything else is needed. She also hands me back the $25 that I have already paid them. We make it through security and a few minutes later the ticket agent comes up an asks for the $25 back. Looks like all that extra stress about possibly missing the plane was for nothing...

The flight to Narita is easy enough. We're on a prop plane as opposed to a jet this time. The flight's an hour long, so not enough time to even bitch about anything. I read a little more of the Mike Tyson book during the flight. We land, grab our luggage, and head over to the hotel we're staying at. It's a 20 minute bus ride, but whatever. It's free. The hotel is nice enough. Decent room, even if it's 2 double beds. Japan is strange like that.

After checking into our room, we head back over to the Airport to have dinner. This airport has a ridiculous mall type of setup before you go through security. Tons of restaurants and shops available to anyone. It's nice. We eat and head back to the hotel for the night. Tomorrow, our flight leaves Narita around 11am (JPN), and we'll land back in Philly around 2pm (EST) the same day. It's going to be some 15 hours of flying in that time, but whatever. Time zones are fun like that. I'm not looking forward to getting myself re acclimated to my EST sleeping schedule. At least we have a weekend to practice.

Let me start off by saying this is an INCREDIBLY long day with some time travel involved, due to flying across many time zones. We woke up in Narita at 7am this morning to quickly get ourselves ready for our flight to America. The bus comes to our hotel every 30 minutes, so we were aiming for the 8:30 one. Unfortunately, we were 2 minutes late, so we had to sit around and wait for the 9:00 one. No problem. Our flight to Chicago was departing at 10:55am, so we still had roughly 2 hours to get situated. However, the bus ride over took close to 30 minutes, due to lots of people getting off at the terminal one before ours. I also learned something else this morning. When I said yesterday that they checked your passport as you first enter the airport, I think that was wrong. I think they check it when you enter the small town of Narita. The two different terminals have a massive amount of streets between them, so I doubt all of this is for airport only traffic. I could be wrong on that, but that's how it feels after looking at it again a 2nd day.

We walk over to our ticket booth and waste some time there. We check our bags, but then we have to go to a second window to pay because we were using a credit card instead of cash this time around. We also still had to check through security, which was incredibly simple. Yes, it was busy, but we were still through in around 5 minutes total, from the time we got in line to the time we walked away. Maybe 7 minutes to give a little extra re-packing time due to the laptop and such. It was a simple x-ray of our bags and a metal detector. None of this nude sensor scanner things like the US has. Manami wanted to quickly purchase this special makeup stuff from the duty free store. Supposedly it's hard to come across, and this store was top shelf stuff. After she bought that, we were in a hurry, so we didn't have much time to eat breakfast. We opted to buy some McDonald's then run to the plane. After purchasing it, we still had around 40 minutes total, but we hustled over to our gate. It took around 10 minutes, and by then they were boarding. We just continued right onto the plane, then ate our breakfast there. I don't remember what everyone had, but I couldn't get over how much food they gave to just me. I bought a "Mega Muffin", which was 2 slices of sausage, bacon, egg & cheese on an English muffin. There was also a small amount of sauce at the top that tasted like BBQ. It was good, but I was stuffed. I really wasn't expecting this much food. Anyway, the meal came out perfectly. It didn't look quickly thrown together. They take their time and do it right. I guess that's the difference between America and Japan, when it comes to McD's. Aside from that, the ones in Japan seemed to be a higher class than the ones I come across in the US.

The plane was nice. The interior was a little older than the previous 787 we flew on to come over to Japan. That said, it was hardly a slouch. It had everything that the other one had, just not as refined as nicely. Even though we sat in economy, there was still plenty of leg room. I guess that's a perk for sitting in the "bulk head" section, which means the first seat of your section, directly behind the diving wall. As for the flight itself, it was easy. It only took 10 1/2 hours to fly back home, as opposed to the 13 hours it took to fly out. That extra 2 1/2 hours makes the first flight SO boring. I didn't feel bored at all this flight. In fact, I didn't even get done reading what I was hoping to finish. Now, the next thing about the flight back is that flying from Japan to Chicago, makes time go back 14 hours due to time zones. With that in mind, we departed Japan at 10:55am, but landed in Chicago at 8:30am the same morning. Time travel is spooky. Next thing up, ANA (All Nippon Airways) is a great airline to fly on. The food they serve is always top notch. I never had one "bad" meal. Also, beer and wine are free, even in coach. In business class you get lots of other perks, but that's not bad. Also, I've never had an issue speaking English on one of their flights. I would say that most of the servers speak it fairly fluidly. We had a cute Korean girl that was our server. I kept asking her 20 questions because it was fun, but she still took incredible care of my wife, daughter and me. I even wrote this total kiss ass thank you note about her directly on the "comments" section for our flight. She saw it and wrote me a thank you letter.

The captain on the plane was amusing (if you spoke Japanese). Manami laughed during his early announcements and she roughly translated it to the captain saying "You are safer on my plane than you were in your crib as a baby." I personally don't think it's a funny statement, but maybe that's Japanese humor. On the flight back, I read a lot of my Mike Tyson book. I'm down to the last 80 pages now. I "might" finish this weekend. Aside from that, I watched Need for Speed on the plane's video system. This is also free, mind you. I also played a few games on my phone & the PS Vita, but mostly read.

Anyway, after landing in Chicago, we had a few hours to kill before we fly to Philly. The first thing we had to do was go down and collect all of our luggage, go through customs, then cross through security again. We had to do this despite the fact that this was a connecting flight, because it was also swapping airlines from ANA to United. They're part of the "Star Alliance", so United gives ANA good rates to fly to the main departure cities. I happened to be wearing a shirt from the TV show, Archer, today. It's a big "ISIS" shirt (International Secret Intelligence Service), and the customs guy didn't find that very amusing. I realize now that ISIS is the name of the new terrorist group who took over for al-Qaeda. Oh well, I'm harmless. We ate lunch at a Wolfgang Puck restaurant in Chicago. I'd say that it was good, but it really wasn't. It was more nourishing. I had a 3 cheese omelet sandwich with basil and some other toppings. The sandwich had virtually no flavor. It just made you feel not hungry any longer. I don't really classify that as good, so I'd skip that restaurant if you happen to fly to Chicago.

We landed in Philadelphia around 2pm EST, still on the 19th (For what it's worth, it was 3am JPN time at this point). We made our way home, being very sleepy in the process. Ended up pulling into our house at 4pm EST. It's been a 22 hour day so far, and I'm pretty tired. Oh well, can't stop now. After we got home, I had to run out and do a few errands. Pick up the mail, get our dog, go grocery shopping... That kinds of shit. My wife was going to quickly unpack the luggage and make dinner as soon as I got home. It's now 10pm EST as I'm finishing this up, and I'm beyond exhausted. I think I did a small cat-nap as I wrote this, but woke up after a few minutes. Now it's time to take a really fast shower and go to bed. After all is said and done, my awake part of Friday the 19th has been 28 hours long. I'm going to bed.

THE END!