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For my last day in Japan I just couldn't spend it all day in the airport. So instead, I got up early (again) to catch a train to Ikebukuro in Tokyo. I had read online about a place called Ice Cream City in the big mall Sunshine City. I got into Tokyo around 9, and it was 9:30 by the time I made to the right area. Since the mall doesn't open until 10am, I hung out at Starbucks looking up where the place was. I found out it was on some gaming area called NamjaTown within the mall. At 10, I heard that way. I was greeted by a long of screaming kids waiting to get in. (Ah the things I will do for ice cream). Finally they let us all in. Turns out this place is a mini theme park with different games and areas to try gyoza and fun desserts. I lapped the place twice and still didn't find Ice Cream City. I did find a place with 50 flavors of ice cream where you could try out 6 different flavors. So I opted for that as a replacement. The weirdest one I picked was shark fin noodle...
It turned out to be disgusting. The others I played a little more safe and crushed them (Imperial Vanilla with Honey, Tulip Gelato, Strawberry, Berry with chocolate, and citrus). Giving up on finding my planned location, I left NamjaTown and went to the Pokémon store instead. I had been trying to find Carl Japanese cards all trip! Figuring I should make it back to the train station, that was my last stop.
A couple trains later, I made it to Narita International Airport (again). I went to the desk to check in and told them I was heading to Houston. Turns out United had updated my itinerary about a month ago and with all the other things going on I missed it. Now I am flying into Denver! No big deal, I arrive at about the same time. From there I went to spend the remainder of my yen.... On food, what else? I had to get some of the interesting snacks to bringback for people to try. My bags now full with food I settled in to blog the rest of my trip (or what I could before boarding). I had picked a place right in front of
the glass so I could get the last bit of sunlight before being locked in a place for hours. Out of nowhere the ground starts to shake - remembering the last time that happened (New Jersey @work), I grabbed my stuff and moved back a couple rows away from the glass. I spent the next 20 minutes looking up online Japan and earthquakes trying to confirm what I had felt. Sure enough, the airport eventually made an announcement that they were evaluating the building to see if any damage has been done to the terminals due to the earthquake. (How I manage to end up in earthquakes in the most random places, I'll never know). I found a twitter account that actually reported on any Japanese earthquake over 2.3, so soon it has posted the size (5.3) and origin (Has,) of this particular one. Luckily the origin was over an hour and a half away from the airport so no major damage at my location has been done. My plane loaded and boarded on time.
Luckily the flight was uneventful spent watching movies (I died laughing during "The Internship") and finishing writing. I failed in downloading my books to
my kindle app so that was missed - dang! Either way the flight went relatively quickly. I started up the entire 11 hours (thank you jet stream for shaving off some hours). At the Denver airport I had no problems going through customs but the US customs sure is more difficult than everywhere else I went on my trip. I'm so glad I'm a citizen here. Due to customs I had to pick up me bag and recheck it after declarations. Then of course, I had to go through domestic security to get to my flight to Texas. As I did I realized that I left my toothbrush bag in Tokyo. Darn it! There goes my ChapStick, lotion, and toothpaste to tide me over. Good thing it was just a few hours to get home. Colton was kind enough to pick me up from the airport. Over 24 hours later, welcome home!!
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