From Pennies To Yennies

I made it! Barely. But I’m currently blogging in the office of my 2 bedroom apartment that I share here in Minami Karasuyama (Setagaya) with my boyfriend. It’s snowing today!

Dan and I left our hotel in Maui and headed to the airport with
-my giant carry-on tote
-his small but ridiculously heavy rolling suitcase
-my giant 85lb rolling suitcase
-my less giant but still giant 80 lb suitcase
Yes. Lots o’ stuff.

Check in at Maui Airport (the little one), and they tell me I can’t fly with such heavy luggage.

WHAT?!

My only option is to put some things in a cardboard box they were willing to provide me. Okay… like I don’t have enough things to carry! There I am with Dan in the middle of the airport with my suitcase open on the scale, taking out shoes, books and other heavyish things and boxing them up. When I got both suitcases down to 70lbs I was able to travel.

Then Dan and I realized the check-in lady put all the luggage in my name. This is incredibly uncool because Dan and I had to take separate flights to Japan, and we would be arriving to Narita in different terminals. Since he was coming into Terminal 2, he wouldn’t be allowed to enter Terminal 1 to help me with the luggage. So, BY MYSELF, I was going to have to collect not only the luggage I listed above, but now also a cardboard box full of stuff.

How do you say “smarte carte” in Japanese?!

Anyways, Dan and I flew to Honolulu in about a half hour, and then we had a layover for a couple hours. We ran into Brent and Kana, who also had a layover, and we all had lunch and chatted for a bit. Then we parted ways for the flight to Narita.

My flight was pretty uneventful. It was 9 hours of trying to nap, watching Bravo’s NYC Prep on my iPod, Gossip Girl on my mini DVD player (thanks Mom!) and reading my Nook. I really hate plane food and forgot to get some snacks while on the ground, so that was unfortunate.

9 hours later we arrived at Narita Airport. I went through immigrations and geared up for baggage claim.

Japan-is-awesome reason #217- Free luggage carts!

I get my luggage cart and wait for my and Dan’s bags. It was 20 min before the first one popped out, then they all came in a row. They were all so darn heavy I was only able to get one at a time, and then I had to wait for them to come around again.

Another 15 minutes and 5 pieces of luggage later, I went through customs with my bags and paperwork. It went something like this:
“You will be in the country for just one month?”
“Yes”
“And all these bags are yours?”
“Yes”
“What are in all these bags?”
“Clothes…”
“…and shoes”
“Have a nice day”

As soon as I got through customs Dan was waiting for me. Oy. Our journey home hadn’t even begun yet!

We took a shuttle train for 45 min to Nippori Station, which had an elevator! Got on a train for another 20 min to Shinjuku Station. We decided to avoid most stairs in Shinjuku by walking outside the building. So we exited the train station and hit the busy streets of Shinjuku with all our luggage- Dan pulling the 2 heaviest suitcases and holding my giant tote, and me pulling the heavy little one and the giant cardboard box. We made it to our line, the Keio Line, but there was still a flight of stairs… which Awesome Dan carried everything down.

The only mishap was when we had to also ride down an escalator. Dan did fine with his bags, but my little suitcase got knocked over, and my box slid all the way down the escalator before me while everyone stared. “Hi, I’m not from around here”, is pretty much the message I sent with that one.

Got on our train to Rokakoen, which is 8 stops down. When we pulled into our home station I was so happy! Rode an elevator up, crossed over the tracks, rode an elevator back to ground level, crossed the street and we were home.

We decompressed for a few min before Dan ran out and got us dinner. We ate, changed our clothes and literally went straight to bed and fell asleep.

It was a lot of work getting everything here but I have everything with me that I wanted to bring, so I’m pretty happy about that. Only 2 minor spills in my luggage- somehow my brand new, sealed bottle of Nyquil seeped out on to one my my Japanese books, and a bottle of nail polish leaked a little, but I had all my nail polishes in a box, so only a little got on some other bottles.

I shouldn’t overlook that I couldn’t have brought all my stuff here without being able to borrow my awesome sister Lauren’s giant pink suitcase. Thanks for that, Catty! I haven’t unpacked yet really, but I do already have a framed picture of her and I on a family vacation in Colorado on my desk.

Today is just a day of unpacking, watching the snow fall, and hopefully going somewhere delicious for dinner. Until something interesting happens! <3