Friday, June 13 – Leaving Japan

 

Farewell to Mark, Mayumi and Yuka!

It gets light at 3:30 AM here and we could have gone for a walk or a last soak in the onsen, but we packed and organized our stuff instead.  It was a clear, warm day, and we set off at 8 for Kushiro, arrived at the airport, checked in and bid Mark, Mayumi and Yuka a fond farewell. 

Our last sighting of cranes!

One of our group has been masked for several days, and another fell sick yesterday.  I felt a cold coming on and stocked up on Kleenex.  I got a window seat and could see the coast of Hokkaido as we followed it south, before it hazed in as we approached the island of Honshu and Tokyo.  We landed at 11:30 and had to take a bus from Terminal 2 to Terminal 3, the international terminal.

Our flight to LAX didn’t leave until 7:45 PM, so our plan was to get a day room at one of the airport hotels.  The Villa Fontaine hotel is enormous with 1552 rooms.  We hauled our luggage there, but they didn’t have a room. (Our birding clothes are not good enough??) We tried the smaller Royal Park Hotel, but they couldn’t help us either.  

Landing in Tokyo

We stopped at a café to have a place to sit for a while and then finally checked in and dumped our luggage with American when their gate  opened at 4:45. They said we could use their lounge until we take off!  Yaaaay!  

The lounge had lots of snacks, wine, and comfortable chairs.  I was feeling somewhat worse and didn’t raid the refreshments as I ordinarily would have.   As we were walking to our gate, we noticed a shop called "Books & Drugs"!   Japan has a very strict policy on what medications can be brought into the country; I couldn't bring Benadryl, for instance.  But here I could purchase Tylenol Extra, after I showed them my boarding card!  I guess taking drugs out of the country is OK!

We finally boarded and took our Premium Economy seats, I took a couple of pills, ate dinner, watched movies and slept most of the way, landing in LA at 1 PM on the 13th, before we left Japan, thanks to the International Date Line!

 We were hoping to catch the Santa Barbara Airbus at 2 pm, and because Customs and Immigration were so efficient, we were through there and out on the sidewalk in no time!   I masked up on the ride home, hoping my severe head cold was just that.

The bus hit major traffic jams on the Conejo Grade and into Santa Barbara and we were an hour late, but our taxi was right there and took us home. 

I wasn’t feeling well enough to go out to dinner, so we had an emergency dinner of hot dogs and mushroom soup, and I went to bed.  My outdated test says I do have Covid – I wonder how many of our group has it by now? 

Bob picked up Mitsy on Saturday morning, who is very happy to be home. 

A happy cat!

Bob saw 45 new life birds which he thought excellent! This trip was a wonderful introduction to Japan, its natural history and culture,  thanks to our amazing leaders, Mark and Mayumi Brazil!