Back in Town

I'm finally at home in Canada, no longer lost in Asia, though they were a little reluctant in letting me go. I took the first train out of Takanosu early Saturday morning to catch the shinkansen out of Akita City at 8:02am; I wanted to get into Tokyo earlier than I needed to be to catch my flight so that I could spend some time with my friend Yuki, who moved there with her family last month. After having lunch together we decided to go to the airport super early, which turned out to be a super huge blessing.
I had finished packing my bags the night before - apparently too well because a few of them were quite dense. I was about the first one in line to check in for my flight, because it was still 3 hours until takeoff, but wow did I need that time. First of all, one of my carry-on's was a couple of kilograms too heavy so I was ordered to try to repack my bags to rearrange the weight a little. So I did, displaying everything from my blowdryer, Japanese textbooks and a pink and white stuffed dog Atsuko's sister gave me in the process. I get back to the counter to try to check my bags again, and one of my other suitcases is too heavy. Luckily I had taken enough weight out of my one carry-on that it was now light enough that I could put the extra 1 kilogram worth of stuff into. So again, over to the side and out come all my things. I felt pretty confident that my bags were ready to board the plane, so I take them back to the counter where everything is weighed again, showing they are the appropriate weight limits, only to be asked the question, "Do you have anything breakable?" I point to my one bag and tell them I have sesame oil in it in a glass bottle. The bottle wasn't the problem, the problem was the fact that oil apparently has the ability to combust on airplanes so it had to be removed. One of the check-in people at this time inserted the joke, "open sesame!"; I thought it was amusing. So after digging through my bag that had been opened for the third time, produced the oil, gave it to my friend in remembrance of me, asked if my sesame dressing would be okay to take, got it cleared by about three staff members, and closed up my bags. By this time quite a line had formed, Yuki and I had seen the contents of my bags many times, and our faces hurt from laughing.
I go up to the counter for the 4th time in the past hour and the guy who had joked about the sesame oil decided it would be funny to tell me one of my suitcases was now 2 kilograms too heavy again. I laughed a little whimper, groaning fakely that I was just trying to go home, and then I realize they're all joking and my bags are actually in perfect flying condition. We laugh again jollily and I'm on my way.
I had been assigned for an aisle seat; I hate aisle seats so I asked if any window seats were open, but no, all full. I say goodbye to Yuki-san and hike the twenty minutes to my gate and sit an wait the short time until boarding. The one of the ladies who was helping me for the past over-an-hour to get my bags under control, the one whom I had asked about the possibility of getting a window seat, comes over to me and tells me that she could maybe get window seats for me now. And bless her heart, she got me window seats for not just the flight to Vancouver, but the flight to Saskatoon as well.
And now I'm home, embarking on the next phase of my life, and it seems it will be a good change...and a little pricy: yesterday I misjudged the distance between my car and the curb and had to choke up 100 dollars for a new tire (the old one was leaking air so fast it sounded like a sprinkler).
So give me a call, I'm back in town...at least till next Monday.