This morning we find our shelves up early and on board a Thalys high speed train to Paris, from Amsterdam. The journey across a couple of countries will take three hours. Oh, to be in Europe and have this ability to hop aboard a train and end in Brussels, Paris… Ah. Here is the breakfast on board.
We caught the train From Le Mans to Paris, went on a great taxi ride through Paris, then the Eurostar to London.
Instead of paying for breakfast at the Nikko Narita, we took a gamble we might have access to the business class lounge. Thankfully the gamble paid off, enjoyed a Japanese style breakfast of fish, rice, miso soup, salad, and French crossiants. Delightful! Although the dinning area was full, so no time to mess around taking photos. Currently sitting back reading the news waiting for our boarding call, and thinking about the past days highlights in Japan.
Like Close Encounters of The Third Kind there has been one though that has dominated Helen since Australia.
Noodles in Narita!
Noodles in Narita!
Noodles in Narita!
Well we are in Narita. So where are the noodles?
We could have got some at the Hotel Nikko, but no… We have to be authentic.
So it was on to the Shuttle Bus to the old town centre. We walked to the shrine and back, saw competing groups preparing for next weeks star festival. We looked for plastic noodles, we could have gone in to the Barge Inn (english pub) or the Jetlag Club (same time zone, thus no jet lag) or the friendly Japanese restaurant with Engrish menus.
But no…. We went for the upstairs smoky bar with no English menus. Somehow with a combination of very bad fooood japanese and bad English we muddle our way through. Had very nice soba, grilled pork, omlette and tempura. The complimentary fried tuna was scrumptious. Beer and plum wine the perfect accompainent.
So it’s good to be singular in your thought, sometimes!
It is a fine morning here in Sydney. The sunrise at the international airport was rewarding. But not as rewarding as an express path through immigration and the popcake automated pancake machine in the lounge.
I would add a photo of the popcakes, but they are all gone. Besides, my ipad has no camera!
Currently at Narita Airport. Our luggage together was 44.3.. my suitcase was lighter than Kym’s – yeah! :)
Using the internet machine near the gate…. an Australian guy gave us 100 yen each to use the machine. I only had Korean money :( Second time today I’ve tried to use Korean money.
I’ve had my fair share of international incidents, giving the wrong money, being on the wrong side of the escalator (did you know that Koreans drive on the opposite side of the road to us?), and telling a pushy Korean woman to go back to the end of the queue at customs coming back in Japan. I’d had enough of pushy people by then… was it going to get her through any quicker… no. The Japanese woman behind me appeared to approve :)
We’ve had our last Japanese meal… I had sushi and miso soup, and Kym had soba noodles.
See you all soon.
We could not help ourselves. We needed a dose of Lost in
Translation. We went to Shibuya for that famours massive
crossing and like all tourists we crossed whie randomly
taking photos! Then hopped a peak hour train (yes there was
a sold mass of people moving as one) to Shinjuku to visit
the spirtual heart of Lost in Translation to Park Hyatt
Hotel to eat in the New York Grill. It had pretty impressive
toilets!
The photo actually came from the Tokyou Metropolitan
Government observation deck (complete with cute stuff
shops). It’s true Tokyo’s skyline truly comes alive at
night.
KDT
For all of you suffering an absence of public transport photos, I have uploaded this photo of the KTM Komuter train at the Mid Valley stop. Hundreds are trying to escape the Marioness of the Mid Vally Mega Mall! We were too! This train tooks us back to KL Sentral.
This was a totally amazing experience. – the train was sechulded to leave at 11:30. We were standing on the platform with our luggage waiting for the train to turn up from about 10:00. They announced the train, and a large number of people just ran to the other end of a very long platform (we couldn’t see the end). These were the people who had second class seats with no reservations. So what do you do when you don’t have seat reservations? you run and jump on of course! a number of minutes later when the train went by there were still people jumping on the train, it was totally amazing to see. I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life.
Once we got to Goa (only 4 hours late), we paid this guy 100 rupees to carry our suitcases. On his head is 40kg’s of our luggage – not to mention another 10 on his shoulder. He walked up three ramps and down three flights of stairs. These guys are fit! Sorry Amy I don’t think we will be attempting this on our next visit.
Apologies for stopping short with the last post. Anyway…
After the last bag check you are frisked again (females and males separated), then you can get on the plane. Once you understand it – it makes perfect logical sense.
Although there is no entertainment available on the domestic flights, I must say that thus far the flights haven’t been too bad. Okay, now I know that I am not the worlds best flyer (easier option would be to knock myself out I think, based on the sweat produced!), but the food is good too. Just wish the packets of spicy snacks they give were easier to open. Surprisingly after the person next to me couldn’t open them the attendant, whipped out her scissors (?!??!!@#@##…) and cut off the corner!!!
When we reach Mumbai airport, we had 5 hours to kill before our flight to Aurangabad. Thankfully there were at least 8 free newspapers to read. I made my way through the majority of them, within the first three hours. Anyone would of thought that I was starved for reading material while on holiday, and had not heard any of the latest news events. But to tell you the truth, on the TV the main issues in India so far have been India’s potential for the World Cup, train bombing (occurred just before we left) and the Holi festival. But there are better things to watch – like Indian music videos!
Activity in the airport is much like any other airport. If you are ever in the domestic area of Mumbai airport – do not use the internet cafe. Grab all the free papers available and read them It claims to be broadband… but it doesn’t work well (read next to useless). 2 out of the terminals are offline. 1 is for the staff to use when not talking to each other and drinking tea, and they are incredibily slow, and is a rip off at 30 rupees for 30 minutes.
