October 27th

Tuesday started like any other.  I woke up, got dressed and went to school.  On Tuesdays I have two classes in the morning and then the rest of the day is free.  When I got to school I found out that today was a Wednesday schedule, since the school was scheduled to have sports events the next day.  Well that was a bonus for me, since I go to my visiting school on Wednesdays, so I thought I might not have classes.  But instead, they moved one of the classes so that I had one class to teach during third period.  They might have moved more classes, but I had asked to take paid leave after that class.

Why did I take part of the day off you ask?  Well, I had to go to Tokyo.

That’s a long trip, you say.  Why yes, yes it is.  But it is very worth it.  Because I’m picking my MOM up at the airport TODAY!!!!!!!!!!  YAAAAAAAY!!!!

Haha, so incredibly awesome.  She is coming to Japan.

I had bought the train tickets a few days ago, and as soon as I was finished with 3rd period I left school, heading for the train station.  It takes about 3 hours to get from Toyama to Tokyo.  And I only got a little bit lost on the way to the airport.  Some of the trains in Ueno were confusing, but I managed to get to the airport around 6pm.

Narita airport has trains that run right to the station.  So as soon as you step off the train, you go up and into the airport.  As you go up toward the gates there is a security center before you leave the train area.  There are metal tables set up with airport security workers waiting to check your id and possibly search your bag.  I was really freaked out, worrying that they wouldn’t let me into the airport since I didn’t have a plane ticket.  The security guard asked me for my passport and I shook my head and frowned.  I had stopped carrying my passport around when I got my alien registration card.  He then asked for an I.D. card, so I showed him my card.  He looked at it then gave it back to me and waived me through.

Phew!  I didn’t know what I was going to do if I couldn’t get through, because my mom didn’t have a phone to get in touch with me.

I went through the gate and looked at the signs.  One of the beautiful things about Narita, since it’s an international airport, all the signs have a bunch of different languages on them.  Including English

They had a North Arrival Lobby and a South Arrival Lobby.  I had no clue which one she would be at, so I went over to one of the monitors that displays flight information.  I was looking for Delta flights, and where they came in.  But…the board didn’t make sense to me, I am used to the listings showing the origin of the flight then the airline and time and the gate number or something like that.  The board I was looking at just showed either “ON TIME” or “ARRIVED” or “DELAYED”.  No times.  No gates.  No help.

So I took a guess and went down one of the corridors and made the circuit around the area.  Nope.  Well, I had to figure out how to get to the other side.  I found a connecting corridor and headed down it, looking for signs or monitors or anything.  Then near the doors headed out to the taxis and buses I saw her.  I ran the rest of the way.  I have never been so happy to see anyone in my whole life.

I found her.  She was safe, and she was here.  It was such a huge relief to hug her and just hold on.  I missed hugs, I missed her, but now she was here!  And she had luggage filled with stuff from home!

We found food at the airport (cause they don’t have Subway in Toyama) and then headed down to the trains to go to Toyama.  I had tickets for both of us to get all the way back to Toyama.  We left the airport around 7:30pm and got back into Toyama at 2:30am.  Yeah, it was a long trip back.  But the express trains stop running after a certain time.  I felt bad for my mom　that after a 14 hour flight it was another 7 hours on the trains until we got to my apartment.  But she made it, and we got to my apartment and crashed.

It was so great to see her and hug her.  Things got a whole lot better.