HOME SWEET HOME:
Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
November 1st, 2013, 6:34pm.
Well, here I am! Home safe and sound! It was the longest trip of my life. We woke up at around 9am Japan time, making our way to Osaka airport by bus. We then had an hour long flight to Tokyo, and had to take a really long bus ride from one Tokyo airport to the other... then we had to wait until our 2nd flight. We left for Vancouver from Tokyo at around 2pm Tokyo time, and arrived at 12:00pm Vancouver time. That's 4am Tokyo time! And I didn't sleep at all! We tried every way possible to get comfortable. Real slept with his legs on the floor and his face on the seat. I slept on the floor with my upper body under the chair in front of me. Oh, and by sleep, I mean hopelessly laid there waiting to get so utterly exhausted that we just pass out. Yeah. That never happened. In fact, I got so frustrated from being so tired, cold, uncomfortable, and impatient, that I thought I was going mad. I watched World War Z (if you've seen this movie you know there's a plane scene. Not a good idea to watch while you're on a plane. In fact, I was sitting right beside a lavatory... ugh.) I also watched Pacific Rim. Which was a cool movie. But 2 movies didn't fill the nearly 14 hour flight. AAAH just thinking about it is making me angry!
Once we made it to Vancouver, we cleared customs (with some hiccups) and toughed it out through our last leg of the trip. By this time I was so tired I thought my eyeballs were going to fall out. I could barely even grip my fingers around the handle of my suitcase tight enough to lug it around... The though of seeing my parents' faces in a short few hours kept me going, though. I couldn't wait. We had a little over an hour on our last plane. We arrived at 4:07pm Calgary time. Which was nearly 25 minutes early! We waited for a bit until my dad arrived. Real and I put on the rice hats we had bought, and put on our face masks. You know, the Asian ones? We did that to show that we were coming back from Japan. It was just a funny joke for my mom and dad to see when they saw us for the first time. It helped my dad spot us out of a crowd though! And good thing, too! Because I would NOT have recognized him! Just like I had hoped and dreamed for, MY DAD HAD GROWN A BEARD FOR ME! :) Yay!!! It was so awesome, it makes him look like the biggest badass of a dad ever. His hair was shaved before to support my mom. (I had completely forgotten that he was bald though, because his hair was basically fully grown back!) And his hair line kinda just migrated to his face. Ah! Okay sorry, I'll stop raving about my dad's welcome home surprise for me. This blog isn't about beards! It's about my trip home!
SO! We got home, and suddenly I wasn't tired. I just wanted to shower my parents with stories and presents that I had picked up along my journey! Of course, they already knew most about my trip, since they've been reading my blogs everyday... But some things are better explained in person!
I nearly cried seeing my mom and dad. I was flooded with emotions that you only really get when you haven't seen your loved ones for so long. Like my dad has always said, "How can I miss you if you never go away?" Haha, it's one of the greatest quotes from my dad.
Since my mom was still recovering from her third chemotherapy treatment that she had received on my birthday, I took it a little easy on her. Don't get me wrong, I still showered her with gifts and stories, but I restrained myself from pouncing on her and smothering her with long over due love! And I would have dumped the bags of souvenirs I got her onto her lap, but instead I politely placed them in her hands one by one. It was really difficult to stay super calm and relaxed! I had missed my parents so so so much! They are my heart and soul and I actually found it really difficult to stay together without them!
I later found out that we were originally supposed to go through L.A's airport. As you know, this morning, there was a shooting there. And all flights were messed up. Thankfully, our trip home went the way it did. I'm still very saddened by what happened, and my thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who was affected by this shooting... It breaks my heart to think that things like this keep happening in our world.
So, I'm home safe and sound. And as you know this means that my blogs from Japan have come to an end. I will add one last blog in the near future, reflecting on my trip. But in the meantime, thank you for staying with me while Real and I embarked on our journey to find our roots! It felt like you were all right there with me, and that I wasn't alone. I hope you've all enjoyed following us in the past 3 weeks- Maybe you can follow me on my next journey!
Love always,
Lindsay Lehr