But I'm home now, and things still look the same.
Yes, it was early on Sunday morning when we arrived back in Australia. I woke up when we were about over Fraser Island, so it was only another 30 mins or so til we landed. The captain was warning us to belt up etc, and that it would be showering when we landed. Well, after it felt like he dropped us out of the sky, we stepped out alive on to the Tarmac. And boy was it steamy. It had been a pleasant 12*C or so when we left Tokyo the night before, but it was 29*C and steamy when we landed at 6.30am. Urggh, I hate the heat.
So after we made our way from the plane, across the tarmac to the terminal, we waited in the Duty Free shop for Mum and Whitney who were further back in the plane than us. While we were waiting though, I took the opportunity to check the liquor, curious to see what was available as I still had about 1.5L of my duty free allowance available. I found a 1L bottle of the Glenlivet I had bought at Liquor Hasegawa for $52, so I was glad I had bought it back in Tokyo. There was not much else that grabbed my fancy, and with only a pocket full of yen, I didn't really have the money to buy anything.
We made our way to the Customs checkpoint, a slow torrid affair, before getting to baggage claim. The line up after claiming baggage was monsterous. It seemed like they had only 2 people from AQIS working or something, because we waited for ages in line, which I got chatting to another guy who had been up in Furano and Asahidake. Needless to say, it was also a long wait.
Neither me or Dean had anything to declare, so we got fast tracked a little. It still required us to get our bags scanned, but we were out into the main terminal area before everyone else so we waited. And waited, and waited and waited. Get the picture?
It ended up taking Mum, Conrad and Whitney over 1.5hrs to get through baggage/customs. A far cry from the 20mins it took to get from the plane to reserving our tickets in Narita. By this time it was past 8am, so we were caffeine deprived and hungry. Peter and Shaun were already there waiting for us when we got out, so after grabbing a burnt coffee, we finally left the terminal about 9am.
It had stopped raining before we had landed, so with 29*C, it had turned into a sauna. But just as we were getting to the cars with luggage in tow, it started raining again. Not heavy, but enough to send us scurrying.
Shaun was still sick, so although we were talking, I tried not to keep conversation going too long to save his throat, and also because I was tired. I had slept solidly on the plane, but plane sleep is about 1/3 the value of good bed rest.
We stopped at the BP Travel Centre in Coomera, as I was hanging for some Nando's. The lack of proper food since Tokyo lunchtime the previous day, had made me ravenous. A chicken steak meal was enough to fill the void. The kiwi lady that served us was pleasant and after I explained that I looked like death warmed up because I had just flown overnight from Japan, she understood. She had done that journey before as well, though under the influence of a lot of alcohol. So after getting some noms, it was back to the cars for the drive home.
As we were coming into the BP the rain had started getting heavier, and so by the time we left, it was bucketing down and lot of water on the road. Coming out of the sliplane onto the highway, Shaun's car started aquaplaning, something he had never experienced before. Fortunately, it didn't last too long, as being in a car with a driver who isn't used to it, can make aquaplaning scary for the occupants.
Other than that the drive home was uneventful. When we got home, the house was mostly clean, besides a layer of cat hair covering every surface possible. Fortunately, our room doors had been closed, because after bringing the bags in and saying goodbye to our chauffeurs, I crashed out for a couple of hours. Well 3 to be exact, before mum asked me to get her car out of the driveway because the grass was wet.
I was now fully awake again, so after spending an hour or so trying to get my thoughts together for Thursday's blog, I went and played soccer.
I could wait to play soccer again, as snowboarding for 9 days and walking all around Tokyo had built up my leg muscles that had gotten a little sloppy. After a quick stretch to warm up, I fired a few balls in at a cracking pace. It wasn't just right-footers either, as my usually weak left foot also had some new found power. We played a short field game with the 7 players we had, but after we had been playing and tiring ourselves out alittle, a group of Middle Easterners came over and asked it they could join in. It was to be an us vs them affair, with them having 5 players to our 7, and one of their mates reffing (probably because he didn't have boots/shoes on). We played til we were really tired out, but unfortunately during my stint as goalie, I had stretched and leaped for a couple of balls and retorn my stomach muscles. Now I was far less manouvreable. I still had a couple of good runs and was feeling good otherwise, but I had been a bit ambitious playing on the day I had come back.
After some beer and food, it was lights out about 10 o'clock for my dreaded first day back at work.
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