It was difficult to leave Guam, but it was time to give Marie to adjust to what she calls her reality, and for me to get back to mine!! I enjoyed being on a tropical island and took a quick shot of the lush green park around Marie's house.My flight from Guam to Tokyo proved to be an interesting one!! In spite of all that puny man has created, Mother Nature always does him one or two better! We passed through the edge of a solar eclipse. The view out one side of the plane was total blackness; outside the other it was light. We all oohed and ahhed. I finished reading a book Marie had loaned me--Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows. I have to confess that I enjoyed it.
I spent an hour in the Tokyo Airport. I enjoyed this display of origami warriors in a shop which specialized in all sorts of origami. Fascinating. As I waited for my flight, I was almost horrified to see over 100 Japanese middle-school age children walk in. Besides a few miscellaneous passengers like myself, there were the 100 children, a group of high school evangelists who'd just completed a humanitarian mission in the Philippines, and a group of high schoolers who had done a study abroad in Japan. It made for a noisy, busy flight, since the electronics in the coach part of the plane was down, so no inflight movie, radio, video games, etc. to keep the group entertained!! Eight hours of teenage angst!! The Japanese children were fun to watch. They screeched with delight when the plane took off and when it landed. They visited and chatted and hugged each other; some of the girls sitting 4 or 5 deep in the seats designed for 3. For some reason, they took pictures of their meals on the plane. Pre-teenage excitement about every little thing is the same in any language! The evangelical group seemed to be exhausted; they were quiet and asleep for most of the nine hour flight; service to others can be tiring. I found the study abroad group who sat closest to me to be the most obnoxious. Most of them were flaunting their newly acquired language skills to Japanese native speakers and to impress any of the rest of us around them. I thought of the old song: "Puttin' on the agony, puttin' on the style. That's what all the young folks are doing all the while."
I was amazed to greet a teenage giant named Vale calling "Grandma" in a low voice!!
The final fun of my first day home was a breakfast at Shari's with Mark's family, who were all headed in separte directions after a fun reunion at our house.
All in all, a good time had been had by all--except perhaps Tom who spent many, many hours building a beautiful, beautiful new deck and gathering wood for our winter's pleasure. Life at is best!!
Love to all. Mom
"Love is like the North Star. In a changing world, it's always constant." — Gordon B. Hinckley
