Having been up half the night packing again, we go up at the crack of dawn (I actually got up too early) and prepared to move the RV across Los Angeles to it's home base. We had been up late talking to our friends in Japan who were advising us of the arrangements we needed to make. We had decided to buy 7 day rail pass tickets which are about $250 each and are the cheapest way of getting aound in Japan. But they need to be purchased outside of the country. We found someone in LA, very near the spot where we needed to drop off the RV. We called them and had them prepare the tickets for collection this morning.
Our flight was at 12:30, so by getting up at the crack of dawn you would have thought that we would have had enough time. We had breakfast and set off for the local charity shop to drop off our bag of surplus bits and pieces. We decided to pass on some of the ski clothes and other items the boys had grown out of and some books. We also had run out of space.
We got to the shop around 7:30am and dropped off the bag. Then we set off to travel to the other side of LA to collect the train tickects and drop off the RV. We go to the office of the ticket agent at 8:45am and collected the tickets. We were in good time. The traffic in our direction had been surprisingly light. We then filled up the RV with gas as it had to be returned filled to the top.
We had asked our friends in Japan if there was anthing they would like us to bring from the US as they are Americans. We then went shopping and bought cake mixes, jellos and various other bits and pieces. We got to the RV drop off point at 9:45 knowing that the ride to LAX airport was about 30 minutes. Still in good time. The RV people checked over the RV, worked out the excess mileage (we had done nearly 4,000 miles) and gave me the refund of the deposit. He asked us when we were due to fly. We said 12:30. Oh dear, he said, did you not know that you have to check in 3 hours before flying. I was working this all out. Half an hour to get to the aiport ..... we were already an hour and a half late!
The attendant immediately called for a taxi, ensuring that the company send a mini-van to accommodate all our luggage. Half an hour later he arrived to pick us up. Now we were 2 hours late and still half an hour away from the airport. The taxi driver got the message completely. He changed into a magic driver and got us there in 10 minutes. There were many drivers on the highway who were amazed to see this flying taxi sail past them.
Needless to say we got there and we able to check in quickly and then were taken to the front of the security lines to get us through in time.
The flight was fine except that it went on for ever. We left at 12:30 pm local time and were in the air for 11 hours and arrived at 5:00 pm The boys had just fallen asleep on the plane so were exceptionally gumpy when worken. By the time we got inside the terminal, Sammy was crying. Narita airport is huge and it took the aircraft about 15 minutes of trundling to get to the drop off point. Then we had to get in a bus to travel to the terminal. We got to the hotel at about 2:00am Los Angeles time phew.
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