“So Adam”, I hear you bellow, “tell us what happened on your holiday. I can’t wait to see what tremendous prose you throw our way!”. Well, thanks for asking. Lots happened. “Tell us, tell us!”. Alright, alright. For those that don’t know, I went to Japan in November for just over 2 weeks with my partner Julie, and we had the most incredible time. The memory is ever-fading but I’m going to try and piece everything together and write a day-by-day blog of our travels. I’ll try not to waffle but I’m making no promises. Let’s go all in. Knee-deep.
“Not so fast, handsome. Tell us about the flight and stuff!”. Well, reader, I’m surprised you want to hear about that bit? But ok, here we go..
Our story begins awaking a stone’s throw from Heathrow airport (I mean, that stone would have to be thrown by.. *googles shot put world record*.. Randy Barnes or someone, amiright?!). From hotel to plane was a painless affair and not one worth writing about. Leg one of the flight was from Heathrow to Helsinki, a 3hr stint. Now, yeah, Japan was going be exciting, probably, whatevs, but, is there anything more exciting than playing with your touchscreen on a longhaul flight? No. Well, yes. But really; no. Imagine our disappointment to discover that there were software issues and we only had a handful of films to pick from that all buffered every 5 seconds, no games, no flight camera. I mean – FUCK. What? My god. They marched on Washington in ’63, and for what?
We soon got over this travesty as we touched down in rainy Helsinki. The transfer was only 2.5 hours so no time to explore. The airport seemed pretty decent, with the particular terminal geared towards Japanese tourists passing through. It almost felt like a bit of a staging area for Japan. Getting us ready, you know? Acclimatising us. There was one place that was very much Finnish though..
From here is where the experience from myself and Julie differed drastically. See, let’s rewind a moment. We got our return flights early in the year for £500 each. Pretty cheap, eh? They don’t call her Julie Marie Thrift for nothing. Fast-forward to the beginning of November, and Julie receives an email offering her a business class upgrade, the 10hr stint of the flight, for £310. She showed me the email, and we both laughed – imagine! It’d be pretty awesome would it not? “Ah well” I said/thought as I went off out, happy in my decision in not even giving it more than five seconds’ thought. About an hour later, I received a message from Julie; “so.. I’ve upgraded”.
WOW. The nerve. I could not believe what I was hearing. She would be swanning off with the elite whilst I was left eating lentils off the floor, or something.
£310 is a lot of money. What else would you pay £31 an hour for? I mean – that’s pretty much what I pay for my piano lessons. But listen here, I can play a bit of a Charles Mingus song – what did you learn in first class, Julie? How to recline your chair all the way? Big wow. Sadly the software issues persisted, so whilst Julie could usurp this disappointment with champagne, fluffy pillows, and pyjamas, I was left to trying to sleep at a 90 degree angle. Obviously I succeeded with no fuss, and slept far better than Julie, but that’s by-the-by.
Eventually, we landed in Tokyo, having experienced day-time for what felt like 14 days. I prayed for darkness. Take hold of the sky, Satan!
We had arrived. Narita airport, terminal 2. We picked up our cases and our last-minute-decision pocket WiFi, and went about trying to find our train to Tokyo city. Immediately I was practically orgasming at the arrival boards, purely because they were using beautiful squiggly lettering instead of our grotesque western lettering. Seriously, I can’t even look at my laptop screen as I write this blog. Disgusting.
One of the very first things we did after getting flights was getting JR passes. This gives access to the famed shinkansen trains (a.k.a. the bullet train) and a number of other trains. It came good immediately on our express train to Tokyo city.
..and HERE is where blog number one ends. Seems natural. Don’t want to go too hard on blog number 1 do I? I hope you enjoyed my ridiculous syntax. I’ll be following this blog up with a day by day account of our time in Japan, but I can’t tell you how often I’ll be posting said blogs. Soon, I hope. Take care.
15 days in Japan. 