Gakusei Travels

ただいま

Well, the day has officially arrived. It is time for me to head home.

This summer honestly flew by so fast, I feel like I just got here and now it. I’m sad to leave, but I’m honestly really ready to go home. I miss my family, and I just want to have my own space back.

The night before, a group of us went out to dinner one last time at Sushi Ro, which is ironic because when we first arrived to Japan, that’s where we ate at together for the first time. Finish where we started I guess. I really don’t like saying good byes. I forget what movie it’s from (probably Disney) but there’s a quote that says, “Let’s not say goodbye, because saying goodbye means going away, and going away means leaving forever.” So, it’s just a until we meet again. Cause I’m definitely going to plan a trip to visit their countries the moment I start working again. I’m already working on my French with Aicha, but I’m not going to Paris until AFTER the Olympics lol.

So, the night before though was absolutely awful. I had to finish packing up and my stuff would just not fit. I did not realize how much I ended up buying, and I started stress crying because my things were not fitting in my bags no matter what I did. I was on the phone with my mom trying to brain storm, and I was honestly ready to just throw away what didn’t fit when my mom just said to mail the rest of my things home. I feel really guilty, but I did ask a few family members and friends if they could spare some extra money so I could ship the last package home. It ended up being $175…but I’m so grateful to those that helped out, and I definitely have a thank you souvenir ready for them.

After that little breakdown, I honestly did not sleep well that night. I crashed around 2 am only to take up around 5:30 am. I didn’t really fall back asleep and just worked on stuffing the last things in my bag. So needless to say, not only was I running on sheer willpower, but the moment I stopped moving, I crashed.

The post office opened up at 7, so I left the dorm about ten till with the bike to go ship off the package. Once that was taken care off, we had to finishing cleaning up our dorm rooms and then check out with the Dorm Mothers. Again, it was bittersweet to say farewell to everyone, but I’m keeping the mindset that we will one day meet again.

Now, our flight didn’t leave until 16:05, but boarding started at 15:10. Rather to be safe than sorry, we left the dorms at 9 to try to figure out how to get to the airport. Sam had soo many freaking bags that she ended up taking a taxi with one of the Japanese students to Tachikawa before taking the airport shuttle bus. I braved the train by myself with my heavy backpack and even heavier suitcase. I’m so glad I shipped the two other ones before hand, because trying to navigate the trains with what I had was bad enough. Everything was so heavy, and I had to change trains about 4 times before making it to the airport. I got a full body work out trying to carry everything.

It took about 2 hours to get there, so I arrived to the airport around 11. Since I got there before Sam, I wanted to figure out the check in process so that I could tell her as well as Aicha, who was flying to Paris later that evening. When I arrived, the first thing I did was go find my other luggage. I tracked them with my AirTags to make sure they arrived beforehand and got them with no issues. I already checked in the night before and paid for my extra bag, so all I had to do was print my tags and boarding pass. Thankfully! All 3 of my suitcases weighed under the 23 KG limit. I was so scared they’d be over, because I had stuffed so much in them. I was probably going to start crying if they were overweight, but they ended up being 22.1 KG, 22 KG and 21 KG respectively. Sam on the other hand, her bag weighed 30KG! She paid almost $500 to check it all because she was insistent on bringing the futon she had bought.

The TSA at the airport honestly moved so quickly. It took maybe 5 minutes to get through. Customs took a little longer. Since I am technically a resident here, I had to go to the Resident line. I wanted to keep my resident card as proof I lived in Japan (lol) but they needed to void it. So I basically signed a form saying that I understand I’m relinquishing my status as a resident of Japan and that I won’t get special re-entry. They hole punched my card and now I get to keep it as a cool souvenir. It took about another hour to get through everything. Found my gate. Grabbed some lunch. And just killed time for three hours. I will say though, the Haneda Airport is NICE. I was really thrown off by how many luxury brand stores there were like Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Gucci and Hermes.

We boarded a little after 3 for our 16:05 take off. It was actually really sweet, but the ground crew bowed and waved us off as the plane was departing. I had taken two sleep aids to help me, because I usually can’t sleep on the plane, and they did their job lol. The first two hours I completely crashed. I then woke up on and off throughout the entire 10-ish hour flight. At one point, I woke up, watched the sunrise, texted my mom, then fell back asleep for another hour. I had downloaded all these shows and movies and didn’t even watch them. However, after that flight, my knees and back were in so much pain. Even though I had a Comfort Plus seat, it really wasn’t all that comfortable. One day I’ll be rich enough to afford first class.

We landed in Minneapolis first around 2 PM central standard time. So what we did prior was download this apple called Mobile Passport Control. If you are a U.S Citizen, with this app you take a picture of your passport to upload yours and your party’s information so what when you arrive at customs, you basically get an already pre-approved code. This way, Sam and I skipped the customs line to the front and were done in less than 5 minutes. Highly recommend you do this. It saves so much time.

For some reason though, even though I added Sam as a fellow traveler, when I submitted the form, it didn’t add her. The customs staff asked where we family and we were like yes. Today we are. The lady quite frankly didn’t care and just told us to go on. We didn’t have anything anyway that we weren’t supposed to have (fruits, veggies, live animals etc). Apparently, people try to sneak that stuff in more than we think according to the officer. He also asked if we had more than 10K in cash. I’m like no but I wish lol. You could also most definitely tell we were back in America. In Japan the staff was always so nice with “excuse me” and “please wait a minute.” Nah. I don’t think the TSA lady in Minneapolis was paid enough to be nice, because she was constantly yelling at people to go to the back of the line. Sam and I were like “ah yes. We’re definitely home.”

Now, this was my time ever flying internationally. I didn’t know that when you transfer from an international flight to a domestic flight, you have to collect your bags, recheck them, then go through TSA again, meaning you have to throw out any water bottles. Of course, Sam and I are trying to quickly pull out any of our electronics from our bags and take off our jackets and stuff. People were probably looking at us crazy. And OF COURSE I get randomly selected for an extra search. yay. The officer was like “are you over the age of 13?” Ma’am…do you not see my tattoos?

I’m glad we did all the pre check stuff ahead of time though. Our layover was only about 2 hours. We stopped and got Caribou Coffee, which just made me so happy lol because 1. the coffee was finally sweet again and 2. I didn’t have to do mental gymnastics trying to order. I also had enough points on the app from getting coffee so much on campus that I got my drink for free! And as Sam and I are walking to our gate, we were just so excited to see all the random restaurants we’ve missed: Auntie Annies, Panda Express, etc. You’d probably have thought we were the tourists instead of two people just coming back from a 4 month study abroad.

Our second flight left a little after four. I once again fell asleep. It was only an hour, so we officially landed back in Indianapolis at around 6:30 PM EST. Ngl, I lowkey almost started crying when I finally met up with my mom lol. She was really thrown off though by how heavy my suitcases were, because they most definitely were not that heavy when I left ( ・∇・).

Poor Sam though, her suitcases literally started busting at the seams. One bag ripped open completely and the one with her futon, I think the vacuum seal bag started re-inflating, so the whole thing started expanding. What’s funny though is that this literally happened when she first came to Japan! Her suitcase broke then. At least though, her bags made it home before they started to break.

I’m definitely glad to be back. I’m exhausted, but I made myself stay up as long as possible so that I would crash hard. It’s a little surreal thinking that I’m back. It hasn’t really settled in yet, so I don’t know if I miss Japan yet, but I definitely missed my family. My dog too, but after 5 minutes she started to get on my nerves again. lol. It’s been a memorable summer for sure, and I learned so much from this experience.

Now, time to get settled back in and return to reality. I need to unpack all those suitcases too, but that’s a problem for tomorrow.