Homecoming

Trip Start May 16, 2006
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9
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Trip End Aug 26, 2006


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Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Konnichiwa, we have reached the end of my trip (although there will be one more entry for some final thoughts). When we got to Tokyo, Eric met up with his old classmate Yuto and Yuto's mother. Then we all took the subway to Asakusa, a popular shopping/sight-seeing district in Tokyo. The difference between the two cities (Tome and Tokyo) was very evident even while we were at the train station. Since Tome was made up of many small towns and suburbs, it felt more laid-back, and the people were dispersed...except for when everyone gathered for the festival. On the other hand, Tokyo is crowded with people rushing everywhere. Asakusa was mainly full of tourists.

We enjoyed our last Japanese meal at a hotel restaurant. It was buffet-style, and I had some good soba noodles. Afterwards, we only had about 2 hours to shop so Skye and I did a lot of rushing. Even though we were only confined to the shopping area, there were still many stores to check out 01 - Emi
01 - Emi
 . I bought a shuriken (a.k.a. ninja star...which later caused some laughter among airport security), a set of chopstick for friends, postcards, and a Hyde keychain. The last item was from what I called the "idol store" because it sold merchandise from Japan's biggest musicians and actors (there were some Korean actors as well). I saw getas (wooden sandals) but decided against getting them since they were pricey and I had no time to try them on. My shopping was almost complete. I couldn't find any anko or anime merchandise, but I wasn't exactly looking into stores that would sell them.

Finally we went to Narita airport. Since we couldn't get our change converted (and Japanese change went up to 500 yen, which about $5), we had to spend as much of it as we could. It was then that Eric made up his mind to get a PSP and the new Tekken game. I was tempted to buy a CD but decided that I could get it at the same price or cheaper at the next anime convention I go to. However, I did find my anime item, a Totoro keychain. They had all this Hayao Miyazaki merchandise in one of the stores. I contemplated getting Spirited Away or Howl's Moving Castle playing cards, but I only had giant bills left. When I exchanged my money, I ended up getting more change (due to the exhange rate being not quite 100 yen=$1). I decided to spend it all on some candy, and I almost didn't have enough until Louis gave me 10 yen. Arigato!

This flight was shorter, around 10 hours. In fact, we were supposed to arrive 3 hours before we left (due to the jet stream)!
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