Japan 2018 day 8: the last katsu

It's our last day in Japan, and there are a few loose ends we needed to tie up.  As soon as it opened, I popped over to my favorite sake shop so that Hello Kitty could buy the bottle of sake that she absolutely loved last night.  Of course, I was also happy to pickup a pretty rare but not-so-expensive bottle of aged sake from a brewery I love...

...which left us with a very big problem.  I kinda went crazy in the last few days, and we now have 12 bottles of sake to take home.  Fearing that we wouldn't be able to fit everything in our 3 suitcases, we hurriedly hopped over to the shopping mall under Tokyo Station to buy ourselves a new piece of luggage.

Quite fortuitously, we ran into the 5th anniversary of the Gudetama Festival at Tokyo Character Street (東京キャラクターストリート).  There were lots of goodies on sale, plus a few displays where one could take pictures.  I had known about this before we came to Japan, but had forgotten all about it once we got busy... so we were very happy to have run into it on our last day.  Hello Kitty was definitely a happy camper.

We rushed back to check out of our hotel, and called one of those new taxis with lots of room to fit our luggage.  We would need to repack so that the weight is more evenly distributed across our 4 suitcases...

We must have looked like refugees or shopaholics, because we had soooo much luggage!  My Birdbrain Cousin had 50kg with her, while Hello Kitty and I somehow ended up with 80kg between us.  Thankfully one of us had status on the airline, and the staff was very helpful in finding a solution for us to avoid paying excess baggage fees...

Having gotten rid of our heavy luggage, it was time to grab some lunch.  I had done some research on where we could eat inside the International Terminal at Haneda International Airport, but unfortunately the branch of Tsuru Tontan (つるとんたん) had a long line of people waiting for seats, and we didn't have the luxury of time... so we simply went a couple of shops down and sat down at Katsusen (和豚 かつ仙).

Japanese pork loin cutlet set "Matsu" (和豚 ロースかつ膳 松) - I generally choose the loin over filet, because I don't see the point of eating deep-fried pork chop if you don't like the strip of fat down the side...  And I got the bigger portion, too.  This was decent.

Having filled our bellies, we headed for our gate and bid Tokyo farewell.  I won't wait nearly as long to take my next trip, and I am eagerly looking forward to that one special meal at a temple of sushi next spring...