Happy to be home!

Having not had a "home" to come back to for almost twenty years, it's a bit of an odd feeling. The anticipation of going on a trip has always been there during that time, but we've never really had that feeling of "oh, I can't wait to get home" for a really long time.

But that feeling was strong over the past week, and now here we are!

Wow, what a marathon over the past 48 hours. Everything went very smoothy though, unlike the day we started this trip!

At Kofy train station waiting for the train to Tokyo.

We had to transfer trains in Tokyo, and then we got on the Narita Express train to NRT Airport.

Our Narita Express train has arrived!

When we arrived at Tokyo's Narita (NRT) Airport, we checked in and headed directly to the premium lounge.

View from our table at the premium lounge in NRT Airport.

We were flying with ZIPAIR, a Japanese discount airline. The tickets were cheap, considering it's a 9 hour flight from Tokyo to Vancouver. But, there is no seatback entertainment, and they don't serve you any food unless you pay extra for it.

We had not bought any food, but we did buy extra luggage. ZIPAIR only allow you 7 kgs of total carry on, but we paid extra to bump that up to 15 kgs. And they were fussy with the weight, making sure that we were under 30 kgs for the two of us, but didn't check sizes. We're always a little worried about Ruth's bag because it's technically a couple of cms over the standard sizing. We were within our 15 kgs each, so no problem.

And, we bought extra legroom seats. For a nine hour flight, that's our splurge. 

Total price including our extras was $659 CAD ($467 USD), which considering the extra legroom and it's the middle of the busy summer season, was actually a pretty good deal.

Now that's what I call extra legroom!

We arrived in Vancouver at 8:45am and our friends Bernd and Angi met us at the airport and brought us back to their place in Delta, British Columbia, which is about 40 minutes south of the airport. 

Bernd and Angi had been on the 90 day Yucatan caravan that we led in early 2018. So we spent three months with them then, and then we saw them again when we stayed at their house in White Rock, British Columbia in the fall of 2018. But we haven't seen them since then... so almost 8 years!

Kevin, Ruth, Angi, and Bernd.

They have a really nice condo overlooking the golf course here. 

Beautiful view off their balcony.

We just spent the day with them in their condo. They offered to take us out, but we were pretty tired, so between having a nap and catching up on things we just ended up staying there. In hindsight, I should have booked three days in Vancouver but when I booked the flights we didn't have the accommodation offer from Bernd and Angi and I thought we were going to have to pay for ridiculously expensive Vancouver hotels in July. Oh well. Hopefully another time.

Vancouver sunset.

First thing Thursday morning we were all up at 5:00am to take us to the airport. We had offered to take a taxi, but they insisted, so that was great. Said goodbyes, and hope to see them again.

I hadn't checked in yet for our AeroMexico flights to Mexico City. I had tried... but it was only showing two vacant seats in economy and they were in different rows. So I figured we would take our chances. The flights were really cheap when I booked them... Vancouver to Mexico City in July, for only $295 CAD ($210 USD) each. Really good deal. And it's a five and a half hour flight and AeroMexico economy seats are not that cramped in the first place so I hadn't bought any extras.

So when we checked in at the counter and were issued our boarding passes, I wasn't surprised that we were in different rows. But I was in row 7... the "AM Plus" section with extra legroom! Bonus!

With that done, we headed to the premium lounge for some breakfast...

Do we look tired? We're actually exhausted at that point!

Arrived in Mexico City at 3:00pm or so. Hopped on the metro for the ride out to Poniente Bus station and we had an hour to wait for our bus, so we went and got some food. Haven't been in Mexico for barely an hour, and we had ourselves some tacos!

Carnita tacos for dinner. Yes, they were delicious!

Two hour bus ride, and a fifteen minute walk, and we were home! It was just past sunset. So glad to be back!

We're here for 27 days... almost four weeks until we head back to the airport again to fly to Toronto.

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