V in Japan - Day 16

Day 16: The return

• Date: October 28
• Weather: Cold and clouded, with a bit of rain (look at that, real Belgian weather)
• Mood: Longing to go home

The early morning

Since my biorhythm was still set to Japan time, I woke up around 4 in the morning (which would already be noon in Japan) and couldn't sleep any further. I checked outside and see the taxi’s already lining up to bring the stranded tourists back to the airport.

Since it was still very early, I played some games on my phone (Triple Town, you should try it out as well), washed myself and got an early breakfast (buffet, yeah). Around 6.30, we got together, checked out of the hotel and got back to the airport by taxi.

We went through the same security procedures again (a necessary evil, I guess) and got a good cup of coffee in the check-in-zone (I wonder if Francis took a picture of that gigantic cup of coffee I got). We spotted our flight and saw that it was NOT cancelled this time (hurrah)! We waited around, as we spotted some delay in our flight, but in the end we were able to take off for Belgium.

After a rough flight (compared to the smooth A380 flight) we landed in Zaventem and got our luggage. I said goodbye to my friends as I took the train home instead of the car we took to get here (I needed to go to another place).

Japanese railways: order; Belgian railways: utter chaos

I quickly snapped back to reality with our "excellent" Belgian railway system (don't fall over the puddle of sarcasm here). The first train was a train that stopped at all stations on the road. But since it arrived at the first station with more than 10 minutes delay (the first station! At what time was it going to arrive in Ghent anyway?), I decided to jump off at the first stop.

The second train (and first one to Deinze, my destination) is cancelled since somebody committed suicide on the tracks between De Pinte and Deinze (seriously? Now of all times?).

And the third train (a fast one) leaves nearly an hour after I arrived in Zaventem only goes to Ghent (*grumbles*). I phoned my parents to pick me up in Ghent instead of Deinze. I arrived at Ghent at 12.30 (which was apparently before the arrival time of the first train) and quickly reunited with my parents.

After a half hour drive, I finally got home, ready to eat some good home-made cooking and then I could start to unpack everything.

After unpacking, I started to catch up to all kinds of news (I've been out of the loop for a while). News as in: local news (local elections and resulting conspiracies), national news (the big Ford factory closing in Belgium), Yugioh news (Abyss Rising revelations) and world news (the Sandy tornado).

Well, that was my log about my two-week trip to Japan. I truly enjoyed it and I can’t wait to go back already. But first, I’m going to save some money and learn some Japanese. Because there’s so much more you can do if you can make yourself understandable in the native language.

We've seen many things on our trip, but there’s a lot of things we haven’t seen yet (Hiroshima, Osaka, manga museum in Kyoto, Odaiba & Ueno Park in Tokyo, etc…), so a second trip there is almost inevitable. But that will be for in a few years.

And from next post onward, it's back to Yugioh-related posts!

V out.