Today my friends all returned to Canada. As mentioned in yesterday’s post, the terrible travel agent booked Flounder on a flight leaving Narita airport at 2:00pm for Chicago, while Code Red, Hippie and Green were on a 4:00pm flight to Chicago. Hippie lost his ticket, so we decided to all get to the airport early so he could fill out some paperwork at United Airlines and get a replacement.
The guys had spent nearly all of the money that they brought with them from Canada, so we decided to take the less expensive, slower route to the airport. We took the Odakyu line from Noborito to Shinjuku, Yamanote line to Nippori, then Keisei line to the airport. This route takes twice as long as the Narita Express, but only costs half as much. Taking giant suitcases on busy trains is never a fun experience.
On the Keisei line we were seated next to a father and his young son. The young boy kept staring at our group, especially Flounder. Flounder turned to him and said “hi”, which caused the boy to hide behind his father for the rest of the train ride.
When we arrived at the airport, we all went directly to the United Airlines departure area. Hippie explained his situation and paid to get a replacement for his lost ticket. When talking to the staff, they looked up the tickets for the other members of the group. It turns out that the travel agent had moved Code Red, Hippie and Green to the 2:00pm flight without telling them. If Hippie hadn’t lost his ticket then he, Code Red and Green might have all missed their flight home! I wish I knew the name of the travel agent so I could publicly shame them here.
Everyone got checked in, and I said goodbye to my friends before they went through the security gate. The past 17 days had been a lot of fun, but I was ready to get back to my regular life in Japan. Also, my liver needed to recover from the never ending deluge of inexpensive beer.
I left the airport to start the two hour trip back to Hello House and proceeded to have one of the laziest, most relaxing days I had experienced in a long time.
Drinking in Japan 