Finally, the day had come: the flight home. Brody and I didn’t have a flight until 6:42 PM, later delayed to 7:05 PM. We left the hotel at checkout time, around 11 AM, and we said a hearty goodbye to those who were there. Brody and I were comfortable with the idea of getting to the airport and chilling out for 5 hours, so that’s what we did. We took a train back to Narita-Tokyo and went to the check-in station for Singapore Airlines – our airliner.

However, we did not expect them to open at 3:40 PM, 3 hours from our arrival time. So, we got our last Japanese McDonalds, where I had a crazy good chicken-teriyaki burger and shaka shaka chicken. I sat and caught up on some Star Wars comics as Brody read some manga until 3:40 PM, where we rushed to drop our massive amounts of clothes and merchandise we had bought during our stay. We made it past the very lax security and to the gate, where we would sit for another three hours with a small gyoza break somewhere in there.

Finally, we boarded our flight and prepared for a 10 hour flight, in which I watched an anime called Forest of Piano. The flight was long, but I was able to get some sleep to help me out with the inevitable jet lag back home. After a not-so-bad 10 hours, we landed at 12:40 PM at LAX. My father picked us up as Brody and I went back to stay the night at his place, Brody meeting some of my relatives for an excellent Mexican dinner.

Brody and I got back to my dads house after dinner and binge-watched three episodes of the latest season os Succession (crazy good show, I would recommend it any day) before passing out from our exhaustive day of travel, only to wake up to another full day of travel from LAX to ROC, where we would be taking different flights with different layovers.

Japan was one of the best experiences of my life and I’m grateful to both Professor Jacobs and Professor McKinzie for allowing me to join them on their expedition abroad, and I am thankful to have met all of my fellow students on this trip and gotten to know them. To those who graduated: good luck on your future endeavors! To those who did not: I look forward to seeing you this upcoming year, where we can brag loudly about our fantastic summer trip.