DAY TEN: Back home

There was no rush getting up in the morning, since our flight wasn't leaving until 1. We all started stirring at about 11, and headed out to find something to eat. Not finding anything that struck our fancy, we decided to be crazy: we went to Haagen-Dazs.

We didn't just stop in for a scoop. Oh no. We found a full Haagen-Dazs ice cream parlor, and went for a full meal. Zoe and Rachel each got Belgian waffles adorned with fresh fruit and a few scoops of ice cream. Mutia and I got what can only be described as a mountain of dairy: here she is attacking it, and here I am in awe of it. We each had six scoops of ice cream on top of a waffle cone, garnished with whipped cream and chocolate syrup, and crowned with chocolate swirly things. I don't think I've had that much dairy in years.

Thoroughly satisfied (and disgusted with ourselves), we waddled out of Haagen-Dazs and made our way back to the hostel. We'd arranged for last night's taxi driver to pick us up again, and he was ten minutes early. He even brought us all bubble tea! Normally we would've loved getting a treat like that, but this was after we'd each consumed what felt like half a gallon of milk. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, we accepted and politely drank some. I felt like I was taking the gallon challenge, but we all survived.

The flight back to Fukuoka was uneventful. We had access to movies again, but the flight only lasted 80 minutes. Factoring in the delay from announcements (given first in Mandarin, then in English, then in Japanese), that gave us about an hour of movie watching time. I made it through most of The Bucket List, which was amusing.

Losing another hour to the time change, we arrived at about 8pm. The girls had to catch a bus to their town, leaving me to spend the night before flying back to Tsushima the next day.