Erin Hughes.com

I haven't been home in a year and a half and was looking forward to seeing my friends and family. I was even more looking forward to my sons first real Christmas. Japan has Christmas but it is only pushed for the commercial benefit of realtors who in true Japanese spirit will try anything to get people to buy more. A real Christmas for my son that was my whole goal. Satomi set most things up for me ..... come to think of it she set up everything. I am very grateful she did so cause I didn’t really have the time or energy to do it. I got the time off work much to the dismay of one or 2 clients. So on the 19th of December at 815 I met Satomi and Eric at the train station and we went back to my place ordered pizza and went to bed. The next day the adventure began. The experience started out pretty good as we rode the train from my place to Shinjuku. Eric was wild as always on the train but not too obnoxious. We arrived at Shinjuku and found the Narita Express (direct train to the airport). We had some time to kill and we got some snacks and went to the toilet. This was a first for me in Japan a toilet that was so disgusting I would not use it. Eric had no such problem. Finally the train arrived and we had a pretty relaxing ride to the airport. That was the last really relaxing moment I remember. At the Airport we had to do 5 things 1. Get checked in and on the plane 2. Get insurance (currently I am worth much more dead than alive) 3. Exchange money 4. Pick up Eric’s bag from the baggage delivery 5. Pick up my (worthless) cell-phone We got 2-4 done with out too much trouble. I was checking in and noticed that I need to get a boarding pass and check in my bags. I refused to do this I paid ALOT of money for my tickets I wanted someone to check me in an issue my boarding pass all at once. Little did I know I was about to get just what I wanted. I was carrying my bags and tickets and trying to coral my son who was insistent on carrying his own bag at the expense of running into the person in front of him every 5 seconds. NOW I had to go through another step that someone tried to pass me off to a 'AUTOMATED KIOSK' I am for automation of familiar repetitive tasks. Getting a boarding pass is neither. So I told the woman to get it for me. She looked at my passport and smirked. "You have to go to line 32." "Why?" I said. "Your passport is old it doesn’t have a bar code like your sons." She said pointing to the bar code and in fact it did not. I got to the line 32 and proceeded to wait 45 + minutes. When I finished I had enough time to throw down some quick McD's :( food. Grab Eric and have him give his mom a kiss and hug and run to the plane. We got on and in a few minutes the plane was taxiing down the run way and we were on our way. Next the plane ride!

I haven't been home in a year and a half and was looking forward to seeing my friends and family. I was even more looking forward to my sons first real Christmas. Japan has Christmas but it is only pushed for the commercial benefit of realtors who in true Japanese spirit will try anything to get people to buy more. A real Christmas for my son that was my whole goal. Satomi set most things up for me ..... come to think of it she set up everything. I am very grateful she did so cause I didn’t really have the time or energy to do it. I got the time off work much to the dismay of one or 2 clients. So on the 19th of December at 815 I met Satomi and Eric at the train station and we went back to my place ordered pizza and went to bed. The next day the adventure began.