My Day-9 and last day in Japan. It was our departure day to go back to America.
***
I woke up at 5 am naturally. My daughter was still sound asleep, so I waited in bed for a while.
When I went to kitchen, my friend was already there. She was cooking breakfast and lunch for us. I’m always amazed on how efficiently my friend do the house chores. She had already finished cleaning, washing clothes, and the half procedure of all the cooking.
She cooked vegetarian homemade croquette for our lunch box. It was my daughter’s request. Since she cooked them on our last visit, my daughter had missed them a lot. We love my friend’s homemade food a lot.
Out flight was scheduled to depart 5:05 pm at Narita. We were required to be at the airport 3 hours prior to the flight. Thus, we needed to leave my friends’ house around 11:30 am.
***
When parting from them at the airport, I did all my best on not to cry in front of them. It was not that hard for me because they are planning to visit us in this summer. We will spend more time together in 4 months. My daughter though, started crying right after we parted from them. She cried a lot while we were waiting for the flight. She cried even while we were in the long flight, missing and thinking of her dear friend.
***
I was surprised at the TSA security in Japan. All the workers were very polite and kind. My daughter and I were treated with their respect all the time.
***
The return flight from Japan back to America was much easier for us to take than the outbound flight. It was a 9.5-hour flight; that was 3 hours shorter than the outbound one. It was a bigger airplane than the outbound one. The seating layout of economy class were 3, 4, 3 seats respectively. Our seats were at the last row, which had only two seats. It was great for us on not having any stranger next to us. As a matter of fact, the flight had many vacant seats. I could see most of the middle seats were vacant. The middle area was the same. Most passengers seemed to have two seats each, as most of the middle seats were remain acant.
***
We arrived at Los Angeles airport. There we needed to do the custom procedure. Before we got to the custom counter, we needed to wait in a very long waiting line. The procedure itself was simple.
At the turn table to pick our luggage, I met one female worker. I naturally smiled at her and she greeted me politely. She asked me how many luggage I had. I said four. She seemed to be a supervisor at the area. She called on male worker and asked him to support us for the luggage. The male worker turned back to me with a friendly smile and told me “sure, with my pleasure!”
From there, everything happened like a miracle.
The male worker introduced himself as Charlie. He was Filipino. His Asian appearance made me feel relaxed. He was a tall and skinny young man, wearing a round pair of eye glasses.
Charlie grabbed a cart and brought it to us. Every time when I pointed my luggage and 3 boxes on the turn table, he quickly went there and grabbed it for me. Soon, our cart was filled with all 4 of my luggage and boxes.
He held the handle of our cart and asked me “shall we go?” From there, he escorted us all the way to the entrance of next terminal.
Everywhere before we passed by any other workers, Charlie cheerfully greeted them and told them he was escorting his important customers. Recognizing him as their coworker with Charlie’s airport uniform, all the workers greeted back to us nicely. They treated our luggage nicely too.
After we picked up our luggage, the next area was the luggage inspection area. The workers were checking all the luggage for all the passengers through an X-ray machine.
I was feeling nervous. Charlie noticed my nervousness and whispered to me “No worry! Everything goes well.” He gave me a warm smile while he was putting my luggage on the turn table one by one.
Charlie was right. All my luggage went through without catching any workers’ attention. Again Charlie picked up my luggage from the turn table and put them back to the cart.
After the inspection, we now proceeded to another turn table. This turn table was to transfer our luggage to our next flight. Again Charlie did all the work for me.
After the procedure of the inspection and transferring our luggage to the next flight, we now needed to go through the security check to enter to another terminal. Charlie went through the security check with us.
Right after we entered to another terminal, Charlie took a printed paper out from his pocket. It was a passenger’s name list of our flight. He pointed our names in the list and asked if he was right. When I answered yes, he now pulled out his cell phone and searched for the information of our next flight. He showed me the numbers of the gate and terminal of our next flight on his cell phone. Then, he gave me the instruction on how we could get there.
At parting, he gave my daughter and me a friendly smile and best luck on everything.
***
We saw Charlie off walking back to his original workplace. My daughter and I looked at each other’s face for a while in awe. We both agreed he was an earth angel sent by our family spirits and angels.
I thought to myself. Wow!! I am well-protected and loved by my family spirits and angels. I really appreciate for their surprise gift.
The great thing about my family spirits and angels is that I don’t need to do anything to get their love. I don’t need to decorate myself, put a make up on my face, nor wear a luxurious clothes to be loved by them. I don’t need any of them to make myself pretty because they don’t care of my physical appearance. They see me in a spirit. All matters to them is to stay being myself. That is awesome.
***
We finally arrived at our local airport. There my husband was waiting for us, with a big smile on his face. From there, he took care of our four luggage and drove us back to our sweet home.
We were so happy to be back home. Our own house is the best place to relax, right? We enjoyed taking a bath and having a sound sleep in our own house.
***
It was a great trip. We appreciate my parents and friends in Japan for their warm hospitality.
I appreciate that we could come back home safely after spending awesome days with my dear people in Japan.
Thank you, Thank you, and Thank you a million times to my parents and friends.
♬ Any feedback? (^^♪
three wisdom 