Ichi-go ichi-e was a term we heard many times during our trip. It means, "one time, one meeting". The origins of this term can be traced back to the 16th century to an expression by tea master Sen no Rikyu. You are to give respect to your host "as though it were a meeting that could occur only once in the lifetime". The term is linked with Zen Buddhism and concepts of transience. It is also particularly associated with the Japanese tea ceremony, and is often brushed onto scrolls which are hung in the tea room.

ITM 🛫 NRT 🛫 SFO 🛫 CLT

Time to head home. We spent the morning getting organized, purchasing tickets for our bus transfer to the airport, and making one last 7-11 visit for breakfast. The food at 7-11 was so good and the breakfast at our hotel was so bad that we decided to buy food at 7-11 instead of going to the free breakfast buffet.

Our bus trip was an hour from Kyoto to the Osaka airport and cost $18 for both of us. Our first flight was from Kyoto/Osaka to Tokyo. We were fairly early for the flight, so we took some time to catch up on updating this site since the last few days were too hectic to take any time for updates. We also grabbed some ramen and gyoza for lunch. Total for two bowls of ramen, 10 gyoza, and rice was $22 and that was in the airport.

All of our flights were very uneventful, though the Tokyo to San Francisco flight was long and boring. We had slightly bigger seats than normal, so it was a little more comfortable, though neither of us slept at all. We had to go through customs in San Francisco, but only had an hour and half to get through. Luckily, Global Entry saved us a good bit of time. We grabbed a quick snack of a bag of crackers, a bag of nuts, and one water. The total for that was $27. We are certainly back in the US. We were surprised to see that we had exit row seats on our flight from San Francisco to Charlotte. Even with the extra space, we didn’t sleep.

We left at 2:00 PM Tokyo time and arrived 9:00 PM Charlotte time. Looking back at the posts from this trip, things from just a few days ago feel like weeks, and the beginning of the trip feels like months ago. Even though we are super tired and still jet lagged, we already have very fond memories of the trip. Now comes the fun of doing laundry, organizing our souvenirs, and picking up Maggie.