2023-04-22 Japan Part 10 - Heading Home and Some Final Thoughts

That's all folks! We head to the airport. This sounds simple, but don't forget we bought a lot of stuff.

They're all very important items as you can see.

Getting to the airport with 4 checked in baggage and 2 carry ons, with only 4 arms between us was a challenge. And don't forget we were staying on the JR Yamanote line, which probably pushes at least 1 million people through it every day. And we had to leave during peak hour.

We ended up getting a taxi halfway then taking the airport express train.

We also got a courier (via JAL) to pick up our baggage from our AirBnB and bring it to the airport for us.

This was a whole ordeal on its own, because the baggage was dropped off at Terminal 3, but our flight was at Terminal 2. Not to mention each individual terminal was gigantic and there are multiple pickup points for the baggage (we went to the wrong one at first).

We felt safe at the airport! There was a cute security bot patrolling the airport.

It makes you wonder though, is it... storing guns or something? Tasers? How is it an actual security bot? Its more of an observation bot maybe.

Perhaps like this?

A life-sized Rem is spotted as we run to the airport gate.

After making it to the Cairns airport, and a 5 hour layover, we got a flight to Perth right over Uluru! I've never actually seen it before.

Some Final and Random Thoughts

We haven't been to Japan for awhile now, so its nice. Our recent trip to Japantown in Brazil made it clear that we were 'due' to visit Japan again, for all its enjoyable activities, places to visit and food to eat.

Sometimes I think about living here for awhile. It comes with pros and cons.

Japan is very convenient. If you could get a place to stay for an extended time (harder than it sounds), you can kinda "exist" here without any incident. But "exist" is the main word here. The big struggle would be progress, in a social sense. Progress with developing connections, making friends, advancing a career, opening a bank account, becoming embedded in a neighbourhood and all of its trappings.

I guess in the end this is a place to visit, rather than settle down in.

Speaking with anyone in Japan you get a feel for this. Everyone has to follow a "script", of programmed phrases and calls and responses. Its a good way to get a large society to operate with little conflict. You'll never know what someone else truly thinks, what they like/hate. Everything moves like a well-oiled machine, and we as outsiders can only watch and marvel at the cogs and mechanisms interacting together.

We got to explore the 'lesser known' parts of Japan, since we had access to a car, rudimentary spoken and written Japanese, and a good internet connection. It was eye-opening to see large buildings, blue skies, and low density commercial and residential areas. The majority of Japan is like this, rather than what you see in Tokyo or Osaka. You can also see the impact of the aging population problem more prominently outside of the main cities, we were often the youngest people in the area!

We won't be returning to Japan for some time because of some upcoming responsibilities, but I overall enjoyed the trip in all its phases! 10/10 will come again within the next 5 decades.