Well, I'm sitting in the Narita Airport in Japan, waiting for the flight to Chicago to start boarding. It's already been a long day! But, I was really blessed and lucky to meet a young lady who was on her way to Canada to study abroad. She introduced herself as Kelly. 15 year old Korean middle school student on her way to live abroad, for the first time.

She was very friendly and her English was pretty good considering her age and the fact that she'd never studied abroad before. We had a bit of conversation on the 2 hour plane flight to Narita from Pusan. It was her first time traveling alone and she was really nervous. Our layovers were the same, and she kept asking me questions about what she was supposed to do after landing, so I offered to help her find her flight (we both had 4 hours, plenty of time to wander around). We finally found where she was supposed to be, then went and got her boarding pass. This all took about an hour and a half!

During this time we stopped at the restroom where she picked up a baggage claim receipt off of the floor as a women rushed by. She tried to call after the woman but to no avail. We looked around for her for a while, but then gave up and took the receipt back to the bathroom and placed it on the counter, hoping that if she realized she was missing it she would come back to the bathroom searching.

Amazingly, about an hour later we ran into her coming back towards the bathroom, we got her attention and told her about her missing baggage claim receipt. She was understandably surprised, thanked us, said a quick prayer asking for it to still be in the bathroom where we left it, and ran off.

Narita isn't exactly a small airport. It was a bit of a miracle we ran into her again. So, interesting!

Anyway, it was about an hour until she had to return to her terminal to get her seat assigned for the flight, but she didn't want to stay behind at her empty terminal alone so she came along with me when I went to go get my boarding pass. That turned into an ordeal! There was apparently some problem with some travelers passports and it was taking forever to process them. The line kept getting longer. We were at pretty near the front but still waited for about 40 minutes. After finally getting the tickets, we walked back to her terminal together.

It was nice to makes friends! She was happy to have help getting around, and I was happy for the company of an enthusiastic English student! I believe that she'll do well in Canada. I'm glad I could help her, I certainly wish there'd been someone around to help me the first time I traveled alone (still recalls the numerous episodes of tears after a series of delayed and missed flights that left her stranded in Detroit without a clue in the world what to do).

Anyway, so here I am now, resting, and really wishing to get some sleep soon...

I stayed up too late last night with friends having dinner and singing at Norebang to celebrate my last night living in Hwamyeong. After all that was said and done I came back to the apartment and repacked my stuff and finally climbed into bed at about a quarter to 4. I set my alarm for 6, and finally dragged myself out from under the covers at 6:50.

So, I'm running on about 3 hours of sleep, a twix bar, half a moon pie, a bite of pineapple, a wheat roll, and two or three forkfuls of really really dry horrible chicken from the plane meal that was served on the way to Japan.

Anyway, I'm hungry and tired. That means that I'm getting kind of cranky.

Well, I have another 4 hour layover in Chicago after landing, that gives me plenty of time to get through customs, recheck my baggage, and get my ticket.

Well, they're about to call for passengers to board. So, I'd better close this post here.

I'm sure you'll be hearing from me again soon!

Until next post,

~A.