I'm home! Well, at work.

[cjsmith]

I'm back in California, sitting at my desk at work. My kitties were very, very glad to see me when I got home. I felt like such a traitor turning right around and going to work!

My watch says I leave Tokyo in a little less than five hours. At exactly this time on exactly this day, I was in the Saibu department store admiring some $1700 kittens. Or maybe I was on the roof. Soon I'll get on a train to the hotel, pick up my luggage, get on a train to Shinagawa, pick up the Narita Express and ride that for an hour, then stand in the checked-luggage-inspection line for well over an hour and then the line to actually check luggage and after that I'll start the 20 minute walk to the gate and just make my plane. Then I'll have a nine-hour somewhat-turbulent flight. Odd how much of this is in my future. Since I'm apparently still in Saibu I'll say that the kittens sure are cute.

I'm in the sniffle-and-cough-only stage. I sure hope that's the last one.

My impressions on returning to the US:
1) My, we have a lot of space per human being! A LOT! Enormous!
2) We need it.

Comments

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Welcome home! And good luck with the culture shock...

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :) At least I wasn't over there long enough to really get immersed.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Yay, you're back! How many $1700 kittens did you bring home? :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Zero, sadly, but I really wanted to get them out of that cage. They were clean and appeared healthy but... but... I have a twinge about pet shops.

[katestine.livejournal.com]

My friend who has been living in Japan tells me that pets are a status symbol for them bc they require space. He didn't adequately explain why they are expensive, other than that it's Japan, but maybe whoever buys them will give them a good home.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

a status symbol for them bc they require space

Mmmm, yeah, I hadn't thought of that angle but it makes sense to me now.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

When I came back from Tokyo, I went through customs in the US at exactly the same time I went through the final security check at Narita. Hee!

Welcome home :).

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That's pretty amusing! :-) I love weird bits like that.

[lkeele.livejournal.com]

Welcome home!! I would enjoy reading anything you have to say about this trip. And what's with the expensive kitties??

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I've probably said all the funny bits already. I'll dig through the trip journal.

I dunno what's with the kitties! They were about two months old. One was called a "rag doll" and another a "chinchilla", but that's about all of the sign I could read, so for all I know that was supposed to be their names instead of some indication of their genes. Why they were nearly $1700 I have no clue. I hope someone in Tokyo is rich enough to give them a good home.

[firecat]

Ragdoll and chinchilla are breed names. Purebred cats are awfully expensive in the US too, although I don't know if they're up to $1700.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, I didn't recognize them so wasn't sure. Maybe the weak dollar has something to do with how expensive they seemed. A hundred and sixty... eight?... thousand yen might translate back to a much more reasonable price when the dollar's stronger.

[firecat]

This web site for a rag doll cattery has some pricing info:
http://www.ragdoll.com/ragnarokcattery.htm

It says that show quality cats can be up to $1700 if you want breeding rights. Or if they're being shipped internationally, there are lots of expensive fees.

(*mild squick*)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I bet these were still fertile. No idea about show quality, of course -- the sign probably talked about that but I didn't understand it.

*sigh*... I saw wild-but-not-truly-feral ones wandering all over the streets, some of 'em very happy for a friendly scritch...

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

Welcome back! I hope your sniffles clear up soon.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I think the cough might finally be retreating to the point where I can sleep, which would be a major turning point in my recovery. From there I figure just a coupla days.

[exponentialdk.livejournal.com]

...echoes of the film Groundhog Day...

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

No kidding. I keep looking at my watch and thinking of what I "am" doing now. (I think I'm still checking luggage.) That makes me wonder why whatsisname never ran into himself in that movie...

[ckd]

Time travel can be fun, can't it? Sadly, the transatlantic version of that is no longer commercially available, so we have to make do with the International Date Line hack.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was sad when the Concordes retired.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

Welcome home!

My impressions on returning to the US:
1) My, we have a lot of space per human being! A LOT! Enormous!
2) We need it.

I had an amusing conversation over the weekend with a Malaysian, a Singaporean and a Brit, about the Americans' rather liberal notion of personal space :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yes, there's that. We're also loud, we're large, and we just plain don't do politeness! (Compared with the Japanese, in general.)