On our last morning in Tokyo, Phil and I woke up early and packed our bags. After Phil came downstairs, I went upstairs to take a shower. After we thoroughly cleared the table, we found another pile of forgotten 10 yen coins. We checked the house one last time, turned off the air conditioner, and left.
My Sterilite locker is heavy, but light enough that I can lift it with one arm, so I’m sure it weighs less than the airline’s maximum weight of 60 pounds. I began to huff and puff as I dragged my stuff behind me, but other than that, neither Phil nor I had enough balance on our IC cards to get to Haneda Airport.
When I checked in, the reading on the scale told me that my locker was 22.7. I’m not sure if that’s pounds or kilograms. If it’s in kilograms, and the suitcase is actually 48.5 pounds, that would explain why I had so much trouble hauling it.
In the airport terminal I noticed a large Japanese souvenir shop. I was a little surprised to see that it stocks a range of Bandai plamo and action figures, Gundam & dragon ball. What surprised me even more was that their prices weren’t sky-high. but the only Godzilla The item I saw in the store was a single T-shirt.
At another convenience store, I found an hourglass-shaped CC lemon bottle with a Halloween illustration in one of the coolers, selling for 200 yen. I wasn’t sure if I could take the entire bottle of liquid home, but Phil and I figured the worst case scenario was that airport security would let me drink the drink and keep the empty bottle, so I used some of my remaining Japanese coins to buy a bottle.
Phil suggested I try scanning myself into the Delta lounge. If I was denied entry, he would pay me 5,000 air miles to get me in. Since I was on Phil’s flight reservation and had been upgraded to a Delta One seat on the return flight, the lounge allowed me access. So we sat there for two hours, eating the occasional plate of chicken curry.
I slept most of the 10+ hour flight over the Pacific. Phil looked at in bruges On my recommendation as I didn’t realize he had never seen this movie before. Phil then fell fitfully asleep on the plane. In Minneapolis we collected our luggage. My foot locker came via a separate carousel for oversized luggage, so I actually got it before Phil got his regular-sized luggage. It wasn’t until Phil flagged me down that a customs agent shouted at me as we walked towards customs inspection asking what was in my locker. I turned to the officer and opened the box. When he saw the contents, he looked satisfied. He asked me if I had any meat? I said no. He waved to me.
After re-checking our bags, Phil and I walked around most of the Minneapolis terminal before heading to the Delta lounge. The difference between American lounges and Japanese lounges is staggering. Phil noticed that the food bar in the Haneda Lounge was spotless. The American one looked like a typical American buffet restaurant, covered in food scraps. We also joked to each other that in the Haneda lounge we overheard a group of ladies behind us saying that Japan was great because the culture was so polite. However, this impact was not brought back to the United States because no one cared about the convenience of others.
After returning home, Phil discovered that he had lost 7 pounds due to eating a lean diet and walking 4 or more miles a day. I don’t have a scale, so I didn’t weigh myself. Phil is already interested in returning to Japan in early 2026.
