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| The funnel waterfall in The Jewel. |
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| Our transport to Tokyo. |
July 25 Day 161
We
got up super early and went to find a cab.
The stand was empty but along the adjoining street came several and we
were soon on our way to the airport. The
roads were fairly clear and we made the short drive quickly.
We
got ourselves checked in easily and quickly and so were able to cross the
street to visit The Jewel, recommended by a friend. It was a large round building full of shops
but at its centre was an area with plants and stadium seating around a huge, tubular
waterfall. You could see the sky through
the ceiling and shuttle trains quietly came and went well above where we
were. A few people were sitting there in
the pre-sunrise quiet and the space was really quite something.
We
explored by going down, which had shops and a food court for several stories
around the clear tube that the water was draining into. A few people were sitting around it and it
was definitely worth the visit.
Back
at the main terminal, there was lots of space and cool sculptures all over the
place. Many of the shops were actually
open at this early hour and we managed to find a non-international chain store
that sold amazing stuffed pastries and excellent coffee. As the sun rose, we explored an open cactus
garden with names and facts throughout and then headed to our gate.
Our
trip had a 7 hour flight connecting to a 9 hour one. We had the same video system on both flights
and quickly got through the films we wanted to see, followed by vaguely
interesting ones and finally the leftovers we had never heard of. (The Guilty
was the definite find on the system.)
We
transferred in Tokyo and had time to walk around the airport. Meg got intrigued when we saw “showers” on a
map of the airport so we followed the hallway to them. They weren’t just showers, for about $20 we
could rent a room for an hour.
Desperately needing naps, we signed up and had a nice rest, with Meg
getting her shower to boot, a great service.
We
got our wake up call on time and made our connector, where the movies really
stated to run out, as did our tolerance for being on a plane. One interesting side effect was that we
crossed the international date line the other way and landed before we took
off.
Elaine
was there to meet us and we were well taken care of in British Columbia,
visiting relatives with a loose timeline to accommodate our accumulated jetlag
and exhaustion. After a fine week there,
we returned to Toronto to find the house and car in great shape and our cat
tolerating our presence.
The
trip was great and left us lots to process in the months to come. We hope to integrate many of the things we
leaned and to not just fall back into the ruts we left behind. The problem is, once you plug back into your
lifer you tend to fall into the same patterns, be they positive or
negative. As of the end of September, we
have both kept off the weight we lost on the trip but haven’t created the time
for regular meditation that we’d planned to.
We have gotten rid of many things from the house but only time will tell
if we start to accumulate them again.
Meg has been good about eating vegetarian but until she gets into a
regular work schedule it’s hard to see how we’re going to change the way we’re
living. At least we’ve received lots of
inspiration and motivation to do so.
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