How ya doin everyone??? Sorry I have not posted in a while...I was busy, had some immigration issues to take care of, had some personal issues to take care of, and also had the 12 hour flight back to NY to tackle...

I get to Narita airport and go to the check-in counter with my passport. I conveniently left my itinerary in my office next to my cell phone charger. So the girl says to me...do you have your tickets? I inquisitively reply...no I dont, I have an e-ticket. so she says...yeah about that, it says here you don't. So at that moment she then tells me, with about an hour and a half till my flight takes off, that I must go back into tokyo, all the way out to Shinjuku, to pick up my plane tickets at my travel agent's office. Right at that moment I saw red...all I wanted to do was scream, my thoughts: can't anything ever work the way it is supposed to?? Why?? Why must everything always get fucked up?!?!?! So I look at the girl and say: find them, it is impossible for me to go back to tokyo, I will miss my flight, you have my reservation there so you know I paid for the tickets, find a way to put me on the plane I don't care what you do, figure it out. So she takes my passport and hurriedly runs to her manager...i think my bright red, shaking face scared her a little. So she comes back and asks me for the travel agent's phone number. She calls him and he tells her that my tickets are at the group check in window at "Check in Island F: Windows 2-8." So it is written down on a napkin and passed to me by the girl...there was a prominent pin on her chest that said "Trainee." I knew before either of us said a word to eachother that something would happen.

Now not that I am saying it is her fault it happened, the jackass travel agent should have told me the deal, but a person not a trainee would not have taken 30 minutes to figure that out, just an observation after I saw her flipping through a hand-written, highlighted guide with instructions on what to do if the person does anything but act like a robot.

So then I put my luggage back through the xray machine. and walk over to Check in Island F...the only window open is number 2 for my travel agency...H.I.S., a japanese travel conglomerate, has taken over the rest of the windows...it's a good thing I can read katakana, or else I never woulda known that my travel agency even was in those windows until I stood on the wrong line and was then told, after waiting on line, to go stand on th right line for another half hour. So now, 45 minutes to departure, I get my tickets and check in. I then look for an airport bar, i need a drink. In Narita there are none...sitting in JFK Airport for 12 hours last year the day after christmas the only thing that kept me sane was the airport bar. So I am not amused. I goto duty-free and pick up some gifts for family then go to get on the plane.

I wait about 10 minutes in the waiting area by my gate watching cnn. I then go through the tunnel being the first one and think I have to stop at the search table on the left with my carry on...like everyone does at JFK. So I stop and am searched like I am a terrorist while everyone else on the plane walks past the idiot american kid being searched like I am Richard Reid, shoe bomber. I board the plane thinking I will have Miho's empty seat to myself...instead a cute japanese girl sits next to me and says "Hi" she told me her name but I have since forgotten it.

We start talking and then I mention to her how much I hate flying haha...she loved the look on my face during take-off. I cannot sleep on planes unless I am drunk, no more free alcohol on american airlines, so I aint paying 5 dollars a drink on an airline, so I had a bottle of sake at first then one more beer. I never slept. It was a long flight that the japanese girl slept through entirely. "Iinaa!!!" In japanese that means "I envy you." I said it to her the few times she did wake up to eat hahaha...by the way I saw "The Hulk" on the plane...what a horrible movie.

So finally we land at JFK, I get off the plane and go to baggage claim. I never saw my bag go by probably because it beat me..immigration took forever. So thinking nothing of leaving my bag unattened for a span of about 10 seconds...who can take my bag?? No where to go but on a line, i figured it would be ok...I run to grab my suitcase and run back to see some 40-something arab looking guy going through my stuff. I flipped out. I screamed "What the fuck do you think your doing?!?!?! Get outta my bag!!" He replies "It looks like my bag." I say "well it isn't now get out of my stuff before I start shoving it up your ass item by item, followed by my suitcase! Is the risk worth the reward buddy?!?!?! Choose wisely." He walks away hanging his head and I get on line. Then he comes over again saying it looks like his bag and that he is going to tell security I stole his bag..I reply by asking him if he has my business card in the id slot thingy on his bag..he says no and walks away...what an idiot.

I get through all of the lines and look for the new JFK AirTrain to jamaica station. I cannot find it so I start asking people if they know where it is maybe...mindyou I am outside in the pouring rain now...it is about 44 degrees out, 6 celsius. No one speaks english..so I yell out in anger "That's just great, more people in Tokyo speak english than in NY!!" and I continue on till i finall see a sign for the train. It was free since it was the first day, that made me happy. It was not as nice as the Narita Express to Narita Airport in Japan is. Plus, it drops you off in the ghetto at Jamaica station. As I am walking through the dimly lit, in the middle of bing renovated, cop-less, almost haunted house looking Jamaica station I realize something..I am the only whitey here. I am basically a walking target, full of luggage and dressed in suit from being at my office earlier in the day. So far so good, I get to where the next train to Penn Station is and there are four black guys on the top step wearing gang colors..if anyone is curious the were "Bloods." You know "Bloods" and "Crypts." If ya don't look it up on Yahoo!

So I get a little nervous. Normally I wouldn't care. But today I was I target. I nervously walked past them, down the stairs, and waited for my train to the city. Nothing happened...not that I thought it would, but I was a little nervous. Been a while since I got that feeling...another reason i like Japan more...never any reason to worry bou things like that. I got on the train and to penn station and met my father and brother...ahhh ny, good to be back, for 3 weeks anyway.