Well I knew that the good times of my winter vacation would soon have to come to an end, and today was that day. With another early morning flight, I had a nice long day of traveling to look forward to. With traveling comes long periods of waiting and with it I had a nice chance to look back on how wonderful the past 3 weeks have been. From the moment I arrived in Ottawa to the cold brisk air and being greeted with my loving parents, I knew I was home. Well maybe not quite. With the unfortunately circumstances around Jessica's exam schedule, I wasn't able to see her until a while after being home seeing as she was writing an exam. But once I had her in my arms again, everything felt right again. For the first week or so I had a great time visiting all the people important to me. Whether it was a relaxing night spent with Serena and Jess to a nice sit down with my caring neighbours, it never felt so nice to just be home.
For Christmas it was wonderful to get a chance to see my brother, though for as short as a stay it was. After I’d had a chance to see everyone I finally got to spend some quite time just relaxing with Jess.
We went and saw a Sens game together (that the Sens unfortunately forgot to show up for...), went out with a bunch of Jess's friends and spent an awesome evening enjoying the amazing Cake Boss Buddy Valastro. All in all I couldn't have asked for a better vacation.
My flight to Japan the second time had a completely different feel than 5 months prior. Though I was still extremely sad to be saying goodbye to my friends and family, the fear of the unknown I had the first time wasn't present. Instead it was a feeling of familiarity and confidence of where I was heading and what was to be expected. For this flight, unlike the others I’ve had, decided to route me through the Dullas airport in Washington. As the only part of the trip that was new to me, I expected to have a bit of difficulty navigating around. And boy did I ever. When I finally found my way onto the shuttle, got off at the correct terminal and waited what seemed like ages in line at screening, the final boarding call had been issued for my flight. Not a great way to start a 13 hour flight; hot, sweaty and hungry. It took me about 10 minutes into the flight to finally get settled at which point I realize that we did in fact have our own personal TV screens. From there on in, the flight started to get better :) I arrived in Nagoya around 7 pm after taking a quick flight from Tokyo. My friend was meeting me around 9 coming from China, so I had a while to wait. And of course while I’m sitting minding my own business, not causing trouble, not making noise, just being a foreigner I got approached by a pair of police officers. I guess I was wrong in assuming that a place I was safe from that kind of harassment was inside an airport, where 1000s of other foreign people go through daily. It was somewhat more challenging this time seeing as my Japanese was a bit rusty after not using it for more than 3 weeks, but after about 10 minutes they let me get on with what I was doing...oh ya, which was nothing.
I met with Rene around 9:30 after he cleared customs and we made our way back home. With no roommate or landlord to pick us up this time, we had to get home on our own. Not exactly what one wants to be figuring out after 20 some odd hours of traveling, but we managed and we were glad to open our front door and be home. I have now only met one new roommate, named Yuu from China, and look forward to meeting the rest tomorrow.
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