June 9, 2008
10:58 PM
Day 8
Day 8 (Saturday)Finally, the day to return. My mum woke me up at around 11. She was packing all my stuff into whatever luggage was around. It was no easy feat, I'd say. Miraculously, she got it into the 2 bags of luggage, my backpack, and 2 more plastic bags which we would hand-carry onto the plane.
Leaving the hotel at 1, we went around Ginza area. Went to a toy shop, which she said was supposed to be the largest in Japan, though I hardly believe so at all. It was around the size of an Animate outlet. Nothing interesting there to buy, we went to some restaurant for lunch. I didn't order anything though, since I had breakfast so late. I ate a piece of tempura and the miso soup from her set meal, thats all.
After that, went to the Don.K! 'amusement discount store' to see if there was any last minute items to get. Up till this point, I still don't understand why the store is called 'amusement discount'. First of all, there isn't any amusement at all. Its just a shop selling items! Why would there be any amusement. Secondly, it might be a convenience store, but theres hardly any discount in the items. The 1 GB microSD card was selling there at 2000+ yen, while you can easily get one at Akihabara for 500 yen. And considering that Japan is the land of hentai, porn, sex, etc, you'd expect to at least see something of that sorts here too. I found a nice corner where they were selling pocket pussies. Didn't say anything to my mum about it.
They had a section dedicated to high-class items. You know.. Hermes, Chanel, LV. The handbags and stuff. Selling at the usual exorbitant prices. Its pretty common to see 6 digits. They sold used ones too. The most impressive one(in terms of price) was a handbag, brand new, unused I think, going for a price of a million yen. 1 million yen roughly equals S$13000. Paying hundreds of dollars is still ok in my opinion if you're those filthy-rich class, paying thousands I somewhat don't understand, but paying tens of thousands? Thats way beyond me. A lot of high school girls carry these branded bags too. Imagine the number of times they'd have to whore themselves out for a bag that price.
At around 3.30, the limo bus arrived, which took us straight to Narita airport. Waited around half an hour just to get the luggage checked-in. Stupid check-in staff. Ate my last ebi filet-o set meal at the Macdonalds at the airport. Then it was into the plane, heading back to Singapore.
The guy in the seat in front of me was an idiot. Ummm... balding indian? He sat down. Shortly after, I felt my stuff getting pushed out from below the seat. He put his baggage under his seat, which was supposed to go under the seat at the FRONT. There was even a metal bar under the seat to show you weren't meant to put your baggage under your own seat. I tried telling him that his stuff was meant to go in front, but he insisted that it went under his own seat. I told him there was a metal bar there to stop you. He then said that you're supposed to push the metal bar up a bit to put your stuff below. What an idiot. I told him one more time to move his stuff in front, then sat back down into my seat. I saw him talking to the guy beside him, who was asking like what that was about. Indian baldie then made some hand gesture which suggested 'dunno wad he wants'. Stupidity and sheer cheek has no limits. Still he didn't move his things. I had to get one of the flight attendants to confirm that the baggage goes in the front, before he finally moved it.
He has a horrible head. Not only did he have a giant balding patch, it had huge amounts of dandruff in it too. I pity the pillow he was using. He also had the habit of grabbing a few strands of his hair and twirling it round and round. After he was done, you could see a curly bunch of hair in the middle of his balding patch. Disgusting.
Other than that, the flight was pretty uneventful. I fell asleep for a while, before waking up and not being able to go back to sleep.
Finally arriving back in Singapore, I had this feeling of relief. As if I was glad to be back, which in reality I am. Its kinda weird.. this was the first time I've ever been happy to be in Singapore. The taxi driver driving us back was malay, but he spoke english. And I understood every single word. I was glad to be able to communicate once again. It was like knowing that you're home, knowing the language, culture and all. Strange, I actually missed home.
Arriving back home at 3 am, we unpacked my stuff. Seems like I had more stuff that I thought I did. The final display of UFO catcher prizes was impressive to say the least. Along with the other souvenirs and clothings too. Currently, my room has a corner dedicated to all of these items, until I can actually find some space to put them.