When I was leaving Guam to return to the U.S. mainland after spending 12 years on the island, I had no idea if and when I'd ever return to this area (and Japan, in particular). This weighed heavy on my thoughts, because I had really grown to love the Western Pacific Island Culture, and Japan. I had been in Japan before--as a tourist to Japan's main island of Honshu with my folks, with my high school basketball team (as their yearbook photographer) for the Far-East Invitational Basketball Tournament in the Tokyo area, with my folks to spend some time in Okinawa, and on my own for a school-teacher snow-skiing trip to Japan's northern island-province of Hokkaido.

Just to be sure, for final preparations for my trip, I bought some extra rolls of film--just in case opportunities for sightseeing pictures came up. I had studied my itinerary--and it seemed that my flight would arrive at the New Tokyo Narita International Airport (aka Narita) just before 6:00am Japan time. And... my continuing flight to Hawaii and the U.S. mainland beyond wouldn't leave Japan until after 6:00pm that same day. That would leave me with about 12 hours of "down-time" between flights. Hmmm. I debated whether I'd maintain my sanity taking pictures in Narita Airport for the full twelve hours. No matter, I decided to just see what the airline had in mind when we arrived. (But I had heard stories from others who had spent a few hours visiting the city of Narita during their layovers, so I thought that if I got a chance, I'd go for it!)

When our plane arrived at Narita and we came through the ramp into the airport, we saw a signboard with certain passenger names printed on it. Since my name was among the names on the signboard, I stayed by the board. Eventually, there were about 20 of us gathered by the board--because our names were listed there. An airline employee came up to us and told us that since our departing flight for the U.S. wouldn't leave until late that day, so the airline would be putting us up in the airline hotel for the layover. They would be giving us a room-assignment and two meal vouchers for our stay.

We were herded through the airport to a waiting bus, which then took us through the airport security perimeter to the road leading to Narita City. The sun was just rising as we pulled in to the hotel parking lot. The hotel was very nice--in fact, compared to many hotels I've stayed at, it was one of the best I ever remember staying at!

We received our room keys and meal vouchers and then scattered up to our rooms. My room was reasonable, a small window looking out on the beautiful verdant grounds, a small television on the dresser, and a small, modular toilet-sink-tub enclosure. Out of curiosity, I tried the television--only Japanese channels. Interesting, but not what I really wanted to do for the next 10 or so hours. So, I took my camera and small carry-on bag with the extra film, and wandered back down to the lobby.

The hotel restaurant was serving breakfast, so I used one of the meal vouchers to get some toast, a fried egg, and a small cup of coffee. In addition to exchanging some dollars for yen, I had grabbed a complimentary area map at the reception desk and was studying it. A gal at the table next to mine asked what I had planned on doing during the long layover. When I mentioned that I wanted to try heading into town--she said she'd like to also, but was worried about not understanding Japanese and the potential for getting lost. Luckily, I speak Japanese, so that solved the problem.

The area map indicated that there was a bus-stop on the road in front of the hotel. So, we finished up our breakfasts, and after she exchanged some dollars for yen as well, we walked out onto the hotel grounds to the road.

We only had to wait a few minutes and a bus pulled up. The driver nodded when I asked if they were going to Narita Station--so we boarded the bus, paid the fare, and enjoyed the early morning ride into town. We passed through farmlands and even fenced areas with grazing horses. As we neared town, we passed by some wooded areas--occasionally beautiful homes appeared in clearings among the trees. One, in particular, stood out--and that's the picture you see above in the first section of this lens.

At Narita Station, we stepped off the bus and had a dilemma--which way to go? There were crowds of "salary-men" in their grey or blue suits all scrambling toward the train station--evidently commuting to their jobs in Tokyo. We didn't have time to ride to Tokyo and back, so we chose to follow a group of kids in school uniforms heading down the row of stores lining the road on the left side of the station.

As we rounded the corner heading down the left wing of the T-shaped intersection, we passed by a "Welcome to Narita" sign in both English and Japanese--very helpful.

We started down the road to the left from the front of the station. Already we were seeing interesting sights--including open-front pet shops that had squirrels, hermit crabs, salamanders, turtles, and sparrows in cages or tanks right on the walkway; bookstores; ceramic shops; basket-shops; rice-cracker shops (where we could watch the fellow making the rice crackers from our street-side view); sushi shops; restaurants; medicine-shops; and photography stores. From the map, we knew we were heading toward a park and a temple of some sort, but we were not sure what to expect.

As we strolled down the road, following a certain crowd heading in generally the same direction, we stopped occasionally to get pictures of interesting sights or to explore the offerings of the open-air shops bordering the street. My travel partner for the day bought a painted bamboo fan at an open-air basket shop--and I bought a peaked bamboo/grass hat to provide some shade. The sun was still not intense in the morning mist, but the day was heating up and I thought that some sun protection would be good (and the hat made a cool souvenir!).

As we continued walking, we noticed that the road was getting more and more narrow and we were now heading down a steep hill. Also, the green "walking paths" on both sides of the road were wider (even more narrowing the drivable area of the road).

The morning air was cool and the scents of various kinds of breakfasts cooking and the fragrances of incense mingled in the gentle breeze. It was tempting sometimes to investigate some of the even more narrow side streets to see where they'd lead us--but I was worried that if we got off the main drag, we'd get seriously lost, so we decided to stay on recognizable roads from the maps we had studied.

As we neared the bottom of the hill on the road, I glanced up and was startled to see an massive tiled roof towering behind the buildings lining the road. Obviously, I had to stop to get a picture!

We came around the bend in the road and saw the entrance to the Narita-Sanso Temple and Park Complex. The Narita-Sanso Temple provides for the maintenance of the park and Narita's school system--elementary, junior-high, and high school. (We learned this from a brochure we picked up at the entryway to the temple.)

We decided to enter the grounds to see what was there--it seemed to be a major tourist attraction--with all the shops lining the entry to the temple grounds.

We weren't counting on so much hiking, but the exercise was probably good for us--considering that we still had another 15-20 hours of flying time ahead of us. So, we hiked up the stairs through the massive entry gate to the temple, then up some more stairs that passed through an ancient graveyard that was populated by moss-encrusted tombstones and creepy-looking statues of the various Shinto and Buddhist god-warriors--guardians of the afterlife. The lingering morning mist made our experience all the more interesting.

The sight of us two gringos staring at the sights probably caused some of the locals to stare at us as well.

Although we were enjoying our "shore leave" immensely, we had to keep aware of the time. It would not be wise to miss our bus from the hotel back to the airport and subsequently miss our continuing flight. So, after some more brief sight-seeing moments and picture taking, we started to head out of the temple area and back to the street for the hike back up the hill.

Our tummies were starting to let us know that some food would be a good idea, and since we had passed some interesting restaurants on the way down the hill, we decided to stop at one of them for lunch.

After a delightful and inexpensive meal of teriyaki chicken, miso soup, pickles, and rice --with green tea, of course, we got back on the street and started trudging up the hill. *Whew!*.. Lots of hiking.

We stopped at a ceramic shop to buy a souvenir mug--Japanese-style, of course--and then got some other goodies for gifts when we'd be back in the U.S.

Since our flight wasn't leaving until after 6:00pm--and we didn't have to be at the hotel until about 4:00, although we stopped occasionally to get a "tourist" picture or some other interesting shot, we did have to hustle a bit to get back to Narita Station to catch a bus back to the hotel. Luckily, Japanese Buses and Trains (and most of their airlines) run very much on time and with a good frequency.

When we made it back to the station, it was convenient that a bus with the same route number as the one we came in on was already waiting there. We asked if the bus would stop at the hotel, and the driver nodded affirmatively--so we got on the bus for the ride back to the hotel.

The bus pulled up at the stop across the street from the hotel. We parted company at the hotel lobby--we wanted to get up to our rooms and clean up a bit before getting on the shuttle back to the airport.

After freshening up a bit, I repacked my carry-on with my new souvenirs and the exposed rolls of film, and brought it down to the hotel lobby. We still had an hour before the shuttle would arrive--so I used my second meal voucher for a snack of a ham and cheese sandwich with a cup of coffee. While eating, I wrote and addressed some postcards to friends on Guam and the U.S.--sort of a present from the trip, I guess. The folks at the reception desk sold me some stamps for the postcards and then also exchanged my remaining yen for dollars.

By the time the shuttle arrived for the trip to the airport, I was exhausted. But I knew that I'd be able to sleep well on the flight.