Coming home

Singapore airport at 4:30am on a Sunday morning. Not exactly swinging but not exactly quiet either. The first flights leave at 6:00am and besides Tokyo, travelers are bound for Guangzhao, Macao, Bhutan, and Manila, exotic locales one and all. And it would seem from the furious gift buying going on in the duty-free area, that these exotic locales are desperately bereft of Marlboro cigarettes and Johnnie Walker Black Label whiskey. I content myself with buying a bottle of water and Joshua Ferris' latest book, To rise again at a decent hour. At pre-boarding security I have to hand over my still unopened bottle of water while the Johnny Walker laden hoards clink and clank their way onto the plane. I am sure this is a metaphor for all that is wrong with early 21st century capitalism but at 4:30am I am not up to figuring out what that metaphor may be. At least they let me keep the book.
The flight back to Tokyo is uneventful, though as we were skirting the north west coast of the Philippines, Tyhoon Hagupit reached out with one of its spirals and gave the plane a couple of shakes just to remind us of who is really in charge up here at 39,000 feet. I don't watch movies much any more on flights as (a) they are usually commercial fodder that actively shrink your brain; and (b) I am increasingly suffering from presbyopia (long sightedness) which means I can't focus on anything to close to my eyes like, for example, the small video screen on the back of the seat on a passenger airplane. Vanity (and laziness) has kept me from going to the optician, so I suffer in silence. Or I read, which is much more rewarding than suffering.
Land in Narita airport, gather my bag and then hop on a bus to travel across an hour and a half across Tokyo to Haneda airport. Narita is Tokyo's international gateway airport but does its damnest to make going anywhere else in Japan nigh next to impossible. ANA have all of two flights a day from Narita to Sapporo which means everybody else bar the lucky two hundred or so have to take their weary, jet-lagged, constipated bodies across the city and check-in at Haneda for their domestic flights. Surely there is a metaphor there relating to the sclerosis affecting the Japanese economy but I am not going to indulge you all.
Arrive at Haneda to find that all flights to and from Sapporo have been cancelled until further notice due to heavy snow. Also find the dude who has sold me his 7' 8" Bruce Jones fish and has kindly come out to Haneda to hand it over. So, there I am, wandering around the airport carrying an eight foot long surfboard and wondering how an earth I am going to get it and me to a hotel if I have to spend the night in Tokyo.
Thankfully, an hour or so later ANA announce that the snow has stopped falling and they are resuming their flights albeit two hours late. I fly up to Sapporo on a Pokemon plane surrounded by a large, boisterous Chinese tour group who keep cracking each other up by repeatedly saying "Watashi wa...". The plane is full and I am worried that Bruce may not make it out of the cargo hold in one piece.
He does though, may Buddha bless Japanese baggage handlers. It is -9 when I step out of the airport and trudge through the snow which is an even greater temperature swing than when I arrived in Singapore. Neither I nor Bruce know quite what to make of this. I think Bruce wants to return to Tokyo. My car is covered under nearly half a foot of snow and it takes me nearly 30 minutes to dig it out. I want to return to Singapore but instead I return to Muroran and the warmth of my family. Though Sanae still doesn't know about Bruce.