Day 17 (July 26) - Goodbye Japan 2017

We pretty much lounged around in our room before checking out of our hotel. Like travelling to Japan this year, we were met with rain as we walked towards Shinjuku station. Unlike Calgary though, I find that when it rains in Japan, it really pours. Our bags were soaked, but fortunately, we were able to find an underground pathway that lead us to the station.

We booked seats on the Narita Express train to head back to Narita airport. Before boarding the train, we made one final ekiben (bento boxes at the stations) purchase. The ride, despite the rain, was relatively smooth to the airport. As we arrived at the airport, we returned our routers and head to check in via the self check in kiosks for Air Canada.

While checking in, my brother and our friend did not have a seat, since I’m assuming that Air Canada had overbooked for this flight. Worried, since we never had this situation before, we tried going to the Air Canada representative, but since we were four hours before our flight, they were nowhere to be found.

Filled with apprehension, we sat, waiting to talk to the representatives. As we checked in our luggage, they assured us that they were working on finding seats. We ended up going through security and settling for McDonalds as a meal (I really wanted to try out a Tsukemen place, but it was in a pre-security region and we just really wanted to get our seats on the plane ride back).

After a couple of nerve-wracking hours, we finally all got seats 5 minutes before boarding the flight. I was separated from my brother and friend due to the assumed overbooking, so I ended up being beside a large gentleman (thus squashed in my window seat) and a couple behind me with a shrieking toddler… Definitely a fun ride back to Calgary.

Going through customs in the new terminal was surprisingly quick compared to two years ago. After waiting for my mom to come pick us up, I did laundry and cleaned up my luggage. Not a large haul, but a trip full of wonderful memories. I’ll discuss it more on an overview blogpost later on!