Day Eighteen - Phew!

Today's Blog Post comes to you directly from Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport as we wait five hours for our adjoining flight to Canberra onboard Virgin Australia flight VA654.

Our departure from Haneda International Airport was trouble-free. We had to wait quite a while because we got to the airport early and our flight departed on time. We all managed around two to three hours of sleep which is pretty good when you are flying economy. Our aircraft, a Boeing 787-9, JA893A was only five months old and still had that new-airplane smell.

Our ANA aircraft

The flight back to Sydney was pretty smooth with the odd bit of minor turbulence here and there. We landed at Sydney at 0928h, a full seven minutes ahead of schedule. The Boeing 787 is interesting from a passenger's perspective because it has very large windows, but doesn't have any window shades to pull down if the light outside is too bright. Instead, it uses photo-electric technology allowing you to push a button to dim or brighten the glass. That said, it really makes it difficult to get the white-balance correct when taking photos out of the window.

Departure from Haneda

Banking south of Sydney

On short finals

After we landed, we collected the obligatory duty free alcohol and cleared customs, baggage, and then quarantine. At the baggage collection area, Kyle met up with his friend Jeff, who was returning to Australia from Hong Kong. The process was pretty quick, even though we had some food to declare, they cleared us through, except me who had to wait in line whilst the bio-security sniffer dog gave me and my luggage the once-over.

We then headed over to the domestic check-in counter to put our bags through and to see if we could get an earlier flight from Virgin Australia. However, because of our class of ticket, they weren't even going to bother checking if there were spare seats available on earlier flights. That's what happens when you buy the cheap airfares. Cest-la-vie.

So while we are sitting at the domestic terminal for five-ish hours, what better time to finish this bog off and draw a line under our eighteen day holiday. The fact that we are sitting in an area with great views of the main runway, also presents an opportunity.

We truly have had a great time in Japan, the people are very friendly, though not a great deal of the population speaks English and signage is pretty much the same. This can make things difficult or an adventure depending on perspective. We travelled just a small area of the middle to southern part of Honshu Island, covering Osaka, Hiroshima, Kyoto and Tokyo, but that is such a small taste of what there is to see in Japan. We are all very keen to return to explore some more. I would recommend getting a JR Rail pass that covers a few weeks and just take it as it comes. With such a pass, you can hop on and off the mighty Shinkansen as you please, and you can cover from the northern tip to the southern tip of the Japanese Island chain.

I would also especially like to see Hiroshima again, and to do it right this time, without any incidences. The general consensus was that some of us loved different places. Sky loved Tokyo (especially Akihabara), Jen loved Kyoto, Kyle loved Osaka, Maureen and I were undecided, but really felt that we need to spend more time to discover some of the hidden specialities of the places we visited.

Our flight from Sydney gets us into Canberra at around 1620h. So that it for this holiday (lest something exciting happens between here and home).

Our weary travellers

I hope you enjoyed this little blog.

--- THE END ---

Day Seventeen - Arigatou Gozaimasu and Genki de Japan

Today was our final day in Japan and sitting here at Haneda International Airport waiting for our flight out of Tokyo on All Nippon Airways flight NH879. 

After our feverish packing until midnight last night, we set the alarm for 0730h, giving us time to shower, get breakfast, do a brief tidy up and walk out the door before our compulsory departure time of 1000h. I did a brief walk through the apartment taking photos. For the record, the apartment was awesome. I'd be happy to pass on the details if anyone is interested. It sleeps up to seven.

After we headed out, we went straight to Tokyo Station so that we could put our luggage in storage for the day. 

Farewell Akihabara Station

Getting there with our luggage was no easy feat, thankfully it being Sunday meant that the trains weren't crowded, but the walking gaps on some of the Station escalators was thinner than some of our luggage (perhaps because the luggage was bulging). The price for storage of the luggage was 600 yen (about AUD$6.70) per suitcase and we had eight.

Putting the suitcases into storage. This was probably the cheapest option.

We then walked out of the station towards Ginza. 

A brief team meeting at Tokyo Station

Is this the cleanest Cement Truck you have ever seen?

The Ginza District is a high-end shopping area in the heart of Tokyo, and is really quite pretty. We probably walked about four to five kilometres. It was interesting to see that they shut down the main street to traffic on Sunday between 1200h and 1700h; this is called Hokōsha Tengoku or Hokoten for short, literally meaning 'pedestrian heaven'. 

So we had a leisurely stroll down the middle of the road, alongside thousands of other people. We also stopped for lunch, visited a department chain called BIC Camera, which sells far more than just cameras and takes up six stories on a city block. We also had a brief visit to the Tokyo Police Museum which had a snazzy old Mazda RX-8 Police Car parked outside.

Afterwards we walked back to Tokyo Station and collected our luggage. 

Farewell Shinkansen. This was the last time I saw you (this time around)

We then caught the train to   Hamamatsucho Station before boarding the Monorail directly to Haneda International Airport. 

The Qantas aircraft sits forlorn at Haneda. The Qantas flight home was cancelled. I suspect that the aircraft has gone US.

On arrival we reweighed our luggage with the check-in scales and realised that we needed a major redistribution for just about every bag. It took us some time to finally get all of our bags and carry-on to within acceptable levels. Afterwards we checked in our bags and got ticketed for the flight. 

ANA Check-in

We then walked up for a short time to the Observation Deck, as the Sun had just set, and I tried my luck at some night shots. 

What a surprise to see the Star Wars R2D2-schemed ANA Boeing B787-9

We also did some airport shopping for some time. We then decided to head through Departures, clearing customs and security, and are now settled at Gate 110. We've managed to get some food and we are resting up, ready for our flight home.

I've convinced everyone that they need to watch "I want to eat you Pancreas" on the flight home. I'll compile one last blog when we get home, and I think we are all ready to get home. I am especially keen to have a medical professional check my back and let me know what's wrong with it. Since the Tuesday before last, this holiday has been quite a struggle, but I have refused to let it stop us from doing what we had planned. I think my back needs a well-earned rest.

Our flight departs at 2200h Japan Time and gets into Australia at around 0930h tomorrow morning.