Saddle up...
...because we're heading home (via the Wild West). On Sunday morning we packed up all of our worldly possessions (one bag and many books more than we started with) to head back to Tokyo for our flight home. After breakfast and an important meeting with the local fauna, we headed out. The weather cooperated very nicely (no new snow, slightly warmer weather) and we were on the main highway back, so it was a far less entertaining drive than on the way up. Our lovely host gave us some home-made marmalade to take home (under 100mL – yay... and delicious).
With an uneventful drive back and a little time up our sleeves, we decided to try for a belated birthday lunch for F. He'd wanted nice burgers, but everything we'd tried up in the mountains had either been closed or non-existent. So after A did her research for interesting options around the car rental / airport, we ended up at a VERY interesting lunch spot – the Cafe Bar Lucky 10!
After lunch, we headed back to drop off the little Honda and shuttle our way back to Narita Airport. We'd booked flights home with Jetstar after not being able to get ANY flight options on rewards seats with our round-the-world ticket. This was a bit frustrating because (a) we had to pay for flights, (b) we had to pay MORE for our one checked bag and (c) we still got less weight allowance for that bag than we otherwise would have (3kg less or 72kg less, depending how you count it). It also meant significant re-packing/re-sorting/re-weighing/disposing before we got to our 7+7+7+7+20kg allowance (we may not have hit decimal-place accuracy like we did when departing). Then we had some dinner, used up most of our cash and IC card money on drinks and chocolate and headed to the plane... and sleep.
