It took a week but it still came, which means my risky business did some good. Earlier in January when I went to the Hilary Duff concert, I had bought $130 worth of concert t-shirts. Not surprisingly this only amounted to 3 tees. I bought them for a 7 year old, a 10 year old, and their mother – none of whom I’ve ever met before, nor knew before until a week prior to the concert date.

A week before the Toronto concert date I got an email from a mother of 2 daughters who was at her wits end trying to find somewhere where she could buy Hilary Duff concert tees. She had gone to her concert in Alberta but by the time she went to buy the tees, they were all sold out. So, the mother searched all over the internet trying to find a place to buy concert tees for her daughters. She eventually came to my HilaryStuff Magazine site and emailed me wondering if I knew of any places to buy concert tees. As luck would have it, I was going to her concert in Toronto. Knowing well that you couldn’t buy any of the concert tees outside of her concerts, I offered to buy the shirts for her and send it over to her in Alberta.

Admittedly I did this without giving it much thought since the mother sounded genuine and I really didn’t think it would be a big deal. I bought the shirts and sent it over to her house immediately after the concert. Today in the mail, I just received her payment in full, and a nice card signed by the little ones thanking me for the shirts. It was so nice to be able to make the three of them happy. The mother even threw in the envelope, a $20 gift card to Starbucks, which I thought was a nice gesture as well.

Maybe not many people would spend that much money on strangers, but in any case, it felt good to be able to help people in need. What a nice way to start the year off.

That was my body temperature when I woke up yesterday morning. It hovered around the 39 degree celsius zone for the entire day until if finally went down to 38.5 by 8pm. My fever’s gone down quite a bit today but I still woke up with one. These chronic headaches are really getting on my nerves too although I seem to be fine now. Must be the Tylenol.

Anyway, I will update more when I feel better.

After a long 11 hours sitting in a plane, I’m finally back home. I still can’t believe that these past few weeks I was in Japan and now I’m back in Canada. Time flies by quickly. I’m not used to typing on an North American keyboard so typing this takes a little longer than usual. I write this as my little Goya magnet doll is facing me with her big smile and pink cheeks. I bought her while I was in Ishigaki island where the choice food there are goyas, or bitter melons.

At the airport I spent the last of my Japanese yen coins on a delicious creme mitsumame with shiratame and anmitsu. Mmm… I hadn’t had one of those with everything in it during my entire trip and it was a wicked way to end the trip!

The plane ride was nothing out of the ordinary. Since the plane wasn’t completely full, I had two seats to myself for the entire ride. The middle three seats were completely empty as well so some lucky girl took it and took advantage of it by laying down and sleeping on them. The movies were dumb: Without a Paddle and The Odd Couple. The only thing I really enjoyed was Meghan’s travels in Beijin in an episode of the Pilot Guides.

The food could have been better but they gave us a choice of Japanese style or American style. I chose Japanese style and got some fish and rice which I suppose was ok for airplane food. around 11:30pm Japanese time, they gave out a midnight snack; we had a choice between an onigir or a cup noodle. I chose the latter one and was somewhat impressed by the contents of it. It was packed full with these little meatballs and shrimps and other yummy items. It’s been a while since I had one of those.

Although the plane landed around 3:30pm in Toronto, I didn’t actually get out of the airport until about 6pm. Customs gave me no problems. The customs guy asked me if Gran Turismo 4 was out in Japan yet. Not knowing the answer, I said no, not yet. Conveyor belt number 6 was what held us back for so long. After a few luggages came spitting out of the belt, no more luggages were to be found for probably a good 45 minutes to an hour. An announcement came out and said that our luggages will now be coming out of belt number 5 since there was a jam in belt number 6 and they couldn’t fix it. After everyone moved over to belt number 5 and a few luggages came out of there – including mine – another announcement came on and said, belt number 6 is now fixed and that our luggages will now be coming out of there! So at one point our luggages were coming out of both belts with people scattering about looking for their bags.

After getting out of that area, I looked for a taxi. It was then that I heard my name being called and looked around. It was Nori, a friend of mine from Waterloo – and also the son of a friend of my mother. It turns out he was on the exact same flight out of Tokyo and we never knew it. I saw him at the conveyor belt but I wasn’t entirely sure if it was actually him so I didn’t approach him. Besides, what would be the chances of me knowing someone on a flight from Tokyo to Toronto leaving at 17:15 on Wednesday Jan. 19? Pretty slim if you ask me.

It was white all over town as I watched and thought how spacious this country really is. I came home to an empty house and unpacked my stuff. I went over to Loblaws and sent in my 11 rolls of film to get developed. I will get them back on Sunday. While I know all 11 rolls will fit on one CD they were dumb and said that they have to put it on two CDs since they would lose money if they put more than 10 rolls on one CD. Dumb, dumb, dumb. After all the business I give them too. I suppose that’s what you get for going to a big company instead of a small family owned place that knows you by your name.

I was hungry so I went to Subway and got a 12 inch turkey and ham sub. It’s 2 min. past midnight now and I’m still hungry. I think my stomache grew while I was in Japan. Must have been all that curry and ramen I’ve been eating.

Anyway, I’m tired so I will try and catch up on all my mails and other duties in the next couple of days. Have a good night everyone!