Day 228: A tale of two hemispheres

Patterns, last day

Day 228 (22 Jul) Monday. It is also 'Eel Day' in Japan where most people tuck into kabayaki eel on rice...a summer classic. I happily eat it, Jinko doesn't. We bemuse the locals when we go out to eat. Much of the discussion this year is how much eel meat is local, how much is imported...turns out, Australia has some of the export market to Japan. 

The lush green of this bush
has had me entranced each
day, at 6.12am

We have a typical plan on the days I fly home, just as we have our patterns when I arrive. We usually leave earlier in the day, book the bus tickets and leave the suitcases at the hotel and head off to do 'something' until we return to catch the 3.00pm bus to the airport. The lotus pond at Ueno Park is apparently in bloom so we decide that would be a good place to go. It's a worthwhile excursion although a many of the flowers were yet to open in all their majesty. Still enough for our purposes and a great way to pass the time. 

Back to the hotel, on the bus and out to the airport. Two hours later we're at the airport in one of the restaurants where I have my usual 'last meal' in Japan, tonight it's eel of course. We were just finishing up at 6.12pm, taking in the view from the window. With my interview with Rebecca Levingston pending at 6.45 Tokyo time, we decide it is probably time for me to 'enter the immigration hall' and find a quiet spot to chat...there are rarely quiet spots at airports however, as we were to discover. I was probably a little excited during the interview, I think I had seen some really interesting and encouraging moments over the last ten days and I had just a few minutes to temper the enthusiasm and convey something of value. Rebecca doesn't refer to me as the show's 'politics nerd' for nothing. 

Narita, at 6.12pm

Interview done, it was just a matter of waiting to board. Classes actually started today at USC and I would be flying right back into them tomorrow, with plans to head directly to campus from the airport. Qualifies as my second-longest commute this year...I did the same from Chicago in April. Lazy, good-for-nothing academic that I am...

I plan to do some work on the flight which appears to be full of school students heading to Australia for their summer holiday. How nice of Qantas to have upgraded me, to business. A nice kind of way to round out a hectic ten days.