We were planning on sleeping in this morning, but we all were jetlagged and were up by 5am so we decided to take the free shuttle bus to the airport. AA gave us some vouchers for 1,500 yen worth of breakfast for each of us, so after giving our luggage to the storage service (we couldn’t check them in until 11am), we went to look for a good place to have breakfast. Most all of the restaurants looked so good! Much better than the typical Chili’s you find in American airports! There were restaurants serving Italian, sushi, ramen, katsu, etc. We settled on a Japanese restaurant and Bay had the kid’s set, which was some onigiri and tempura served on a cool space shuttle plate. Koa had soba, Mariko had soba, tempura and sashimi, and I had ten-don (tempura donburi) with miso soup. I also had a glass of cold beer, which was so good. The vouchers said “not good for alcohol” but the lady said it was ok. The food was delicious, and we ate it up quickly.
After that, we walked around the shops and bought some frozen mochi treats. They looked really yummy, and we picked out several to eat later (you have to wait about 30 minutes before it thaws out). Our next thing to do was to hop in a cab and head over to a shopping mall in the city of Narita to find haircuts for the boys. They were going to a kindergarten for a few days starting on Monday, so we wanted them to look good. We had let their hair grow pretty long because we wanted them to go to a Japanese stylist.
The mall was really big, kind of like an American mall. There was even a Hard Rock Cafe there. First, we went to the Jusco dept store to buy some shoes for the kids for kindergarten, and browsed around the toy section. Koa is nuts for power rangers, and he found a bunch of cool stuff to buy. There was also a big game center for kids, and we spent a lot of time there, just looking around, trying to avoid plopping 100 yen coins into the machines. After Jusco, we went to the mall shops and found the haircut place, where we made a reservation for noon. While waiting, we sat in the “picnic court” and ate the mochi treats, which were awesome! We got mocha, chocolate, marron (chestnut), milk tea, and matcha flavors. The picnic court was so much better than the food courts in American malls. Besides the McDonald’s and Baskin Robbins, there was a Korean place with bibimbap, a takoyaki/okonomiyaki place, a ramen place, steak place, and a few others. They all looked so good, but we were pretty full still from breakfast.
Soon enough, it was noon and time for the kids’ haircuts. We picked out some kakkoi (cool) styles from the stylist books and the kids were transformed from American hippies into Japanese idols. We were done by 1pm, and we had to check in at 5:30pm, so we still had a few hours. I guess we killed another hour shopping, then went to the McDonald’s on the first floor to get a Pokemon calendar and something to drink. The McDonald’s was cool, with a little toy conveyor belt that cranked out the burgers. It was pretty neat.
Finally, we had run out of things to do at the mall, so we hopped on the bus and headed back to the airport. The bus went through a pretty cool part of Narita, which was kind of touristy. We caught a glimpse of Naritasan, which is a group of temples, before making it to the shuten (final destination) of Keisei Narita. Then we got on the train for a quick trip to the terminal, where we checked in and waited, and waited for the JAL flight to Osaka. I had a cold Kirin (always good) and the kids shared some strawberry milk. The flight was ok, and we took a cab from Itami to Mariko’s mom’s place. It was so nice to finally be at home! It had been five years since I had visited, but it felt just like yesterday. After a quick meal of maki-zushi and oden, it was time for bed! Another travel day, but this one was a whole lot more fun!