1:43pm 11/04/2009

I'm safely back in Japan after about ten days in the States. It was busy, but I'm also happy to have the chance to go home. The downside is, I feel more homesick than usual. However, I am also happy to be back in Japan and trying to get back to my “usual” routine.

When I left Japan, it was still quite warm. I remember wearing a t-shirt and coming home to turn on the air conditioner still. However, when I got back on Monday, I was scrambling to find my gloves and jackets. It was quite cold today.

I'll start back to the beginning to my trip.


As usual, I went to ダイちゃん's house the night before my departure. He lives close to the airport and usually, someone can take me to the station so that I can avoid the bus with my two big luggage. However, as a future note, I can also have my luggage sent ahead of time so I don't have to travel with so many things.

I played with his cats and then slept in on Thursday. Around 1pm, his dad drove me to the station. I dragged my suitcases up the elevator, to the ticketing booth, through the gates and back down the elevator to the tracks. An old lady saw me encumbered by my bags, but she was nice and wished me a safe journey.

Once I arrived at Narita, I checked in and then made my way past customs and just sat around for an hour. I realized a little too late that I could have used my computer at the airport, but it was alright as I was carrying a little more than I should have so it would have been a pain to get my netbook out.

I was hoping to tire myself out and sleep on the plane, but it didn't quite work out that way. I had a fairly bumpy ride back home. I did manage to sleep for a bit. I only watched one movie, The Proposal. Otherwise, I found it too hard to concentrate on a movie. I mostly tried to sleep and then stared relentlessly at the flight map to see where we were. Fortunately, they had some decent music too, so I was slightly calmed (or distracted) by listening to Ayaka and Madonna. As it was night time during most of the flight, I thought I saw thunder in the clouds below the plane. That was enough to cause a bit of panic in me. In case you didn't know already, I'm not fond of flying these days.

I arrived safely at SFO. I was really happy to be home, although it wasn't Christmas. My parents picked me up and we went to eat a quick lunch. However, I started feeling really sleepy in the middle of lunch. Once I got home, my parents had some errands so I was left to sleep in peace. When they returned that night, I had an early dinner and then my mom went to class. I spent some time repacking my suitcase as I was scheduled to leave early next morning for OC.

I arrived at OC around 9am the next day. One of my closest friends, better known as オーさん in my blog, picked me up at the airport. We then went to a dim sum place in Irvine. Since it was a weekday, we had a small discount. It was weird having to remember to pay tip in the States.

Afterwards, we drove up to Buena Park so that I could buy some omiyage at Knott's Berry Farm. I spent almost $60 in jam. O.o Then, オーさん took me around for some more shopping. Basically, it was a lot of driving around until we were hungry enough for dinner. For dinner, we went to Avila's El Ranchito. I love the soup at that restaurant, which consists of a really nice bowl of chicken soup with tomatoes, avacado, rice, cilantro and onions. All the goodies!! I also ordered a quesidilla, but I knew I over-ordered. I ended up taking it home and having part of it for breakfast the next day.

Once we got back to オーさん's place, we played a bit of SF4 before retiring for the night. Yes, I had my butt kicked, but I'm going to practice and I demand a rematch! :P hehe

We had to get up early again the next day since I was going to meet my brother at the airport. It was also the big moving day. Once we met up with my brother, we went to IHOP for breakfast and then to pick up the truck. Unfortunately, we were informed that my 10' truck was unavailable and that I would have to go to Lake Forest to pick up a 14' truck. Fortunately, the cost remained the same, but the gas price obviously wasn't going to be. >.> I was slightly annoyed at Budget for this. However, they gave me a few extra miles and a free dolly (but that was only because the gas tank wasn't topped off).

I really didn't want to drive a 14' truck. Good thing, my brother offered to! ^^

We went to the storage space and spent some time moving. It went a lot of faster than I had thought. I knew that I had a lot of junk, but with four people, it was a fairly smooth process. We then went to Olive Garden for lunch. Three of us weren't as hungry since we had a fairly big meal at IHOP. However, I love Olive Garden's soup and salad, so the four of us ordered that. I also ordered Bruschetta, but that was before I remembered that we also get free garlic bread at Olive Garden. Oh well. ^^;

After we parted ways with my friend, オーさん、my brother and I checked in at our motel. I chose the motel specifically for the large parking area it offered, otherwise, we would have stayed at a place nicer and closer to the airport. It wasn't that bad, except the motel was right along a train track....so it was quite noisy until just after midnight. ^^;

The place we stayed at was La Quinta Inn in Old Town Irvine, which is right along the 5-freeway and where the Denny's and Jack in the Box was. It was a long time since I had been there. I used to go there with my ex for late night dinners at Denny's. Hmm...maybe not memories I want to bring up now. ><;

Anyway, once we checked in, オーさん spent the day as our chauffeur again. I think he was a bit tired driving all day. ^^; Thank you soooo much again!!!!! We went to a lot of random places like Tustin, called the District, which opened really near my old house. The last place we went to was Irvine Spectrum. There were so many memories in Irvine. It was really sad to think that it would be a really long time before I would be there again... It was my home for 7 years and it was the place that I thought I would go back to once I was ready to leave Japan, but things don't always go as planned.

We had dinner that night at the Corner Bakery and then オーさん dropped us off at the motel. Thank you so much again オーさん！！　　My brother and I stayed up a little bit, watching cable and then retiring for the night. It didn't help that the trains went by every so often with its horn. It wasn't a well-rested night as I was hoping for. ><;

/>The next morning, we got up early and checked out. Then we started on our journey to SF around 8am. I was numb, having to say goodbye to all the things that I was familiar with and that I had spent a good part of my life with. Before I knew it, we were already out of OC and then out of LA and then out of the Grapevine. In the 14' truck, we were making decent time on our way to San Francisco.

My brother and I had a nice talk during most of the drive. I hadn't really spoken to him for more than a year...well....we just e-mail each other, but he's really busy at times so I know he doesn't always have time to respond. I'm really glad that we get along and that we share a lot of similar interests, so it's really easy to talk to him. To imagine that we used to fight, but I guess we never really had any bad fights...just the childish ones. ^^;

We arrived back in SF a little after 4:30pm. Along the way, we stopped for gas a few times and ate lunch at McDonald's (they're doing the Monopoly game again, but the food was pretty much as mediocre as I remembered – we were going to go to In and Out, but missed the exit ramp). Once we got there, we started the process of unloading the truck. It didn't take very long either and then I came to terms with the fact that I have finished a full circle from when I since moved to college.

The next day, we took the truck back and then went down to see my brother's new house and see my kitties again. It always takes me a few moments to remember how big Spunky is. He's a main coon mix, so he's a bit bigger than your average house cat, but I often forget that until I see him again. Kerochan is doing good, but still as shy as ever.

We waited for my brother's gf to get home from work and then took my mom out for dinner. After dinner, I drove my parents back to SF. For some reason, the drive took a lot longer than I thought – then again, I was paranoid at driving so I drove a bit slower than usual.

I spent the next few days sorting through some of my things and trying to figure out what I could toss. I sure had a lot of junk! During the few days, I logged into FFXI. オーさん, his gf and アイさん helped me do an Assault in Lebros so that I could finally get enough points for my Chivalrous Chain. I guess that I will be working towards the Amir Boots next for my DRG since I think that that is the only one that is obtainable to me at this point. For Lebros, we were only able to do the one where we had to hit the rocks,　土竜作戦, as おーさん's gf was still ranked pretty low for Assault, but that was ok! We cleared it with a NIN, BLM, RDM and me as DRG. YAY! ^^

I also did Beseiged and earned a few points. We were able to save the AC despite not having a lot of people logged on during that time. ^-^v

Other than that, I went out with my mom when she didn't have school and did a little bit of shopping. I tried not to sleep in too much while I was in SF, because I didn't want to have a hard time readjusting my schedule when I got back to Japan.

My mom had noticed a change in my mood during those few days, but she was attributing it to something else. I couldn't explain fully why I was feeling the way I was, but I think it had to do with leaving Irvine and “moving on”. There was a kind of sadness and depression that I couldn't put any words to, so I ended up acting a bit more aloof and out of it than I thought. I think part of it was coming to terms that my ex and I have officially parted ways (even though it really had been this way for almost 2 years). I guess seeing him again also had an effect on me...anyway, that's another story for another day.

On Friday, I took the train down to San Jose so that I could spend the night at my brother's place with my kitties! I had never taken Caltrain before and it is definitely very different from riding the train in Japan. Caltrain didn't run as often as the trains in Japan, but they did come often enough and especially if you took the express ones. It was more like a private train, I suppose.

My brother picked me up at the Lawrence train stop (it took about $7 from San Bruno to Lawrence) and then we waited for his gf to get off work. We then went to Pho for dinner! Ah!!! The thought of it makes my mouth water again!! ><;

Once we got home, we watched Macross Frontier on my brother's nice big TV! :D His gf had to go to work on Saturday, so we didn't stay up late. The next day, my brother took me around for some last minute shopping. Unfortunately, the unexpected occurred.

While we were at Valleyfair Mall, the starter on the Sentra gave out. T_T This would then involve the next three hours of having my brother's gf come so that we could jumpstart the battery (we originally thought it was a battery problem) which didn't work and then having his gf's mom come out and call AAA. When the AAA guy couldn't get the car started, we had to then wait for the car to be towed to the nearest shop.

It put a little hamper in our plans to go to all these places for my last minute shopping. It was a good thing that I had gotten most of the shopping out of the way while I was down in Irvine. ^^; We got to the mechanics around 4:30pm and then walked over to my brother's gf's work, which was luckily near the mechanics, so that we could use her car until she got off work. We finished some last minute errands, picked Wendy up from work and then drove up to SF to have dinner with my mom.

Of course, it was also Halloween on Saturday night so at my brother's place, we also gave candy out to trick or treaters. When we arrived in SF, we also saw quite a few trick or treaters (probably junior high and older) wandering the streets in pretty strange costumes. But it really reminded me of the old days and how I hadn't seen trick or treaters in almost 5 years! It was nostalgic! :)

That night, we had planned on watching more Macross F, but forgot to bring the CDs, so we watched an episode of Vampire Knight. We wanted to watch more, but my brother was tired so we called it a night.

The next day, we had to get up early again so that I could get to the airport for my 10:50 flight back to Japan. We had a slight delay, but managed to get back to Japan around 3:15pm. Again, I wasn't able to concentrate on any movies. I tried to watch Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, but at times, the turbulence just took away my concentration. ^^; During the times that it wasn't as turbulent, I managed to get some sleep, which probably helped me adjust a bit better this time returning to Japan.

ダイちゃん picked me up from the airport and I was happy to be back. I forced myself to stay awake, but as I sat in the car on the way back, I started to feel really sleepy. I managed to stay up for dinner and then crashed at 9pm.

I woke up at 9am the next day, but that was also after waking up a few times in the middle of the night and then forcing myself back to sleep. I thought that I had readjusted back to Japan time, but that night, I also fell asleep around 9pm. Well, it was probably a good thing since I had to go back to work the next day.

I don't remember much of what happened during work on Wednesday. I was going to stay up for Salvage last night as I was feeling fairly awake when I got home, but again, around 9pm, I barely managed to keep my eyes open. I really need to find a way to get back into my normal routine. ><; So I ended up missing Salvage, but I'm really going to try to stay up for Limbus.

For the time being, I just wanted to say, “ただいま～！” It feels good to be back. ^^


Finally, I'm sorry that I didn't have a chance to meet up with any of my friends. It was way too busy trying to unpack and clean and just getting things cleared up. However, I'm looking forward to Christmas so I will try to meet up with all of you then! ^-^