Jeff and Angie comin'atcha from gate D6 at IAH, the furthest fucking terminal in this entire place! (Seriously, the D Terminal goes in descending order from D14 - D10, then D9 - D7, then D1? Through D6? What psychopath did the layout for this place?) But we have time to finish up this last blog post with what we did our final day and then some retrospection.
Our last full day in Tokyo was spent sleeping. HA! Fooled you! No, we shopped. We started bright and early leaving the hotel room at around 8:30 because early morning on a weekday is the secret best time to go into a Don Quixote. There's hardly anyone there to crowd you as you navigate the narrow and winding passageways of never ending STUFF. Luckily we had a list of what we still needed to purchase, so our superfluous expendatures were kept to a minimum. One such planned purpose was another suitcase. Yes, that's right; even though we came with an entirely empty suitcase, our purchases were so many that we ended up buying another! You can't make me feel bad! I regret nothing!
We toted that purchase back to the hotel since it was only about a 10 minute walk away through the Ikebukuro station and then went on to our next part of the plan: shopping at Akihabara. Starting at the furthest bookmarked location in our Japan 2026 Google Map, we worked our way back toward the Akiba station. Our first stop was to a shrine we've never been to before: Kanda Myojin Shrine. This shrine's schtick is horses, and seeing as how it's the year of the horse right now in 2026, it was an appropriately themed shrine. Not only does it enshrine the samurai Taira no Masakado, whose crest was a horse, this shrine has an actual, real, live, sacred, divine, miniature gray pony! We saw it divinely chomp down on an apple!
Jeff and I bought some omamori (blessed amulets or charms), I getting a horse one for "Everything is going to be all right" and Jeff getting "Data-loss prevention/IT protection" and a "matchmaking and success in love and relationships" charm as a requested omamori for a friend. I also had us wait in line to give some yen to a big statue of Daikokuten to thank him for all the luck we have had so far on our vacation (this is important).
We left and walked for about 5 minutes toward my last "need-to" place to visit, which was BEEP where I found the Nightwalker PC game in 2024. They did not have any more copies this time, but that's okay, it's a fun and unique shop and the only place that really sells PC-98 games.
We hit up some Mandarakes and Surugayas and a Book Off. I found another copy of the Nightwalker anime on DVD and bought that. Jeff, I know you found a few things as well? Do you remember what? (Copies of the FF6 and FF7 soundtrack, a few odd magic cards, and a [for some strange reason laminated] trading card of our lord Il Palazzo!).
We took a rest and got of our feet by chilling in a McDonald's and tried their cheese Shaka Shaka chicken (which was like a giant, dry, chicken nugget they put into a waffle maker and flattened it) and then you dump mac and cheese powder on it in a bag and shake it up. Neither of us finished our chicken.
We then plodded along to Amiami figure tower which was many floors of anime figurines that were way out of our price range. So we went around the block to the Amiami in Radio Kaikan that shares the building with many other resellers and second-hand as well as new nerd merch. We started at the top on the 9th floor where there was another Big Magic TCG shop for Jeff (alas, there was not another great vending machine)[There actually was and I won some protective sleeves with Vivi from FF9 on them]. I waited outside of the tiny shop in the hallway and did the American Lean on a wall while waiting. Jeff came out with his purchases and I had to grab on to him. "I think I'm gonna faint, my legs are suddenly really wobbly," I told him and grabbed on, but then he said that he noticed it too. I glanced at another customer nearby, caught his eye and made a swaying gesture and he nodded in confirmation: this was an earthquake! We were at the tippy top of this building and it was swaying (thank goodness we weren't on the 24th floor of our hotel room at the time!!!). It was very weird feeling as this was the most intense earthquake we had ever felt (we're thinking this was about a 3 or 3.5 magnitude) and I swear there was a weird, high-pitched ringing sound. Luckily it was over after a minute or two. Another gaijin who spoke English came up to us and we both kinda gabbled and spouted strange conversations in our shock about how scary that was and how we've never felt one before and are we going to die? We must be okay because all the local Japanese people are continuing to shop like it's nothing. Yeah, we were all a bit scared and giddy. I checked the news and found out that we were feeling an earthquake that originated offshore near the east coast of Hokkaido/Iwate and the Tohoku, Shin-Aomori, and Sendai shinkansen to Tokyo had all been suspended as they evacuated those cities along that coast in Iwate and Hokkaido. Y'ALL, WE COULD HAVE BEEN STUCK IN THAT JUST LAST WEEK!! Again, I would like to thank that frog statue for warding away evil, and Daikokuten for keeping us lucky!
We stumbled about the next few floors in a daze, trying to get back into the shopping mood, and my spirits lifted a bit when I found a doll shop that sold more and better NuiCHIBI DIY plushie materials including the perfect eyes for a Yayoi and a Shido!
We decided the give up the pretense as our heart just wasn't into shopping anymore, and our feet were hurting, and I just wanted to see the outside after having a scary experience in that windowless, 9-story, crowded building.
So we headed back to the hotel, it being about 6:30pm. Jeff did a small load of laundry with what we were going to wear on the plane while I took a shower. While he took his shower, I started to pack my clothes. Then together we tackled packing the rest of the souvenirs into the new suitcase. By the time we were finished it was about 9pm. Too late to go out for one last hurrah and, quite frankly, we were pretty tired and had to wake up early so we gave ourselves plenty of time to lug our luggage and check in to our flight.
And so, it was with a heavy heart, we had to say goodbye to the city as we made our way through it on a long Yamanote ride to the monorail, and then to Haneda Airport (or, as the Japanese say, maize), lugging our two wheeled suitcases, two backpacks, and two personal items.
Once again, I had the same experience as in 2024 where you go to the check in counter and they tell you to use the kiosk before you get in line. The kiosk doesn't work. They tell you to get in a different line which is, of course, the longest one. You wait 1/2 an hour. Luckily, even though I bought the airline tickets through United, ANA still honors the fact that I got the higher-cost economy tickets that gives us two pieces of checked luggage each. So I just checked my wheelie suitcase full of souvenirs and my Nomatic backpack with my clothes leaving me with just my personal item smaller backpack. Jeff checked his wheelie suitcase of souvenirs but kept his carry-on backpack and personal item.
The security line was the longest I have ever seen it! It was winding through all the stanchions, past all the ANA desks, and making a right turn to then extend all the way past at least 4 more airlines-worth of aisles of check-in counters. Thankfully, it moved pretty quickly and we were through security in about 20 minutes.
We made sure our gate existed and actually went and ate some miso-butter ramen and a restaurant near our gate and enjoyed sitting down and eating a meal. This flight was completely full so they were unable to find us seats next to each other, so Jeff sat in the seat behind me, and we were both middle seats in the middle row. I'll leave it to Jeff to describe his seatmates, but mine were both men (one Japanese and one American) who both manspread and did not follow the proper etiquette of giving up an armrest for the middle person. American guy downed at least 4 red wines, and Japanese guy only got up once the entire flight and kept moving his foot into my footwell as well as encroaching on my leg space! I spent the entire flight hugging that tiny pillow so that I was touching no one and took up as little space as possible. I did get a good 45 minute nap though. [My row was a couple who tried the "both of us book an aisle seat so that hopefully nobody will sit between us" method. Which failed, because here I was. At no point did either of them do the courteous thing, which is to offer the person in the middle one of the aisle seats. Instead, they had a conversation over me on and off over the duration of the flight. Much like the Japanese man in Angie's row, the man in my row *literally didn't get up the entire plane ride*. I cannot imagine. I tried to be as small as possible, so as to not inconvenience them, but there was little in the way of returned courtesy. I think I got maybe 15 minutes of sleep on this flight. ANA's meals were such a disappointment on the way out and back that I can no longer recommend them for long-haul flights. JAL or bust, apparently.]
We landed in Houston and encountered the most empty, swift, and relaxed re-entry into the USA we have ever encountered! It was about 9am and we must have been the first international plane to have landed that morning because there was NO ONE else in customs. Re-entry consisted of having our photo taken on one of those facial-recognition tablets, one at a time, and it still took only 3 minutes tops. We grabbed our luggage from the carousel and then headed for the exit for the connecting flights. No one asked us to declare anything, no need to even flash our Global Entry status. It was very odd, but also a relief. We dropped our bags off at the conveyor line where the guy made sure our bags' final destination was CVG, and then we went through TSA precheck line, where I sleepily almost forgot to throw away my bottle of Pocari Sweat, and we were off to find our gate. Which was a good 20 minute walk away and of course at the end of the concourse. I freshened up a bit with washing my face, reapplying deodorant and brushing my teeth, and then it was time to board the 2 hour flight to CVG. In-flight entertainment was weird and not great as it was through Direct-TV??? So you pretty much had weird, limited cable, so I picked the channel that just ran Zoolander over and over and pretty much watched that 1.5 times when I wasn't nodding off from sheer exhaustion. [The controls for the in flight entertainment were also *on top* of the arm rest, so if you leaned on it the wrong way, your channel changed. I was able to eke out about 45 minutes of intermittent napping on this flight.]
Then we were home! Back in the land of Skyline chili and Graeter's Ice cream, and where Espelage Airport Transport Service gave us a ride to Skyline for a meal and back to our car. A great service! I highly recommend them! :) And then we were home, reuniting with our cats that thankfully didn't forget or hate us.
Stay tuned for one last blog post for this trip, as we go through some trip reflections and deal out some awards! [A preview: My biggest disappointment was Other Tourists.]
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