The holiday is over and we are at home in Sydney. In some ways it is good to be back in comfortable and familiar surroundings, a place where we can relax. However, there is much that I will miss about overseas and it won’t be fun to return to the familiar problems. Anyway, I’m too tired right now to think or write about much.
The final day in Tokyo was spent wandering around through Takashimaya, eating a couple of bento box lunches from the basement food market up on the level 12 viewing area. Almost bought a Sharp Muramasi minature notebook computer, but upgrading the memory beyond 256MB would be difficult due to the proprietory modules.
Instead, walked across to West Shinjuku to purchase a Sony Vaio VGC-M53B/D computer from Yodobashi, which took longer than expected. Rushed back to the hotel and somehow lugged two big roller suitcase bags, one tatami mat, purchased from Tokyu Hands, two bags of porcelein plates and two daypacks up through busy Shinjuku Station and on to the Narita Express. Fortunately we were in car 1, closest to our platform entrance.
We had to pay an excess baggage fee and had to risk the computer going in the checked-in luggage with lots of fragile stickers. On the plus side, we were given window seats almost at the front of the economy compartment. This was good, because it’s quite a rough route, from experience.
Before we boarded the plane we purchased and ate on of the huge apples that they sell in Japan, almost larger than can be carried in a single hand. A full meal in itself.
The flight was fairly empty for Qantas, but quite comfortable. The apple pannacotta dessert was divine. I really found our Qantas flights to be far superior to British Airways and the time seemed to pass a lot faster.
Arrived home to find that the grass desperately needed mowing and the fish tank had sprung a small (and luckily slow) leak. Washed clothes, bought groceries, slept, entertained relatives who arrived for a surprise visit, watched the end of a cricket test, mowed the lawn, got frustrated at the new computer (networking problem), had dinner at a friends place. Already busy, definitely back in Australia!