Once we're on the plane we sat around some more as some items of baggage were especially heavy and the plane was un-balanced. First time I've heard of that but I'd rather wait for an hour then be unbalanced in the air. That meant our 2-hour layover in Cairns became 1 hour which included changing to the international terminal and immigration. Our's seemed to be the last bags onto the turnstile, so it was quite a rush not to miss our flight. The staff were calling out for those going to Narita, chasing us along and moving us to the front of the queue. Held up by having put aerosol shaving cream in my carry-on bag, we ended up being the last ones onto the plane. Oh what a feeling to hear 'Hamish and Shaun McGregor' called out over the loudspeaker. What happened after we finally sat down? We waited and we're told that the baggage handlers were just finishing up, and then, after waiting some more, we're just sorting out the paperwork. Who knew the baggage handlers had paperwork to do? The captain apologised and said that he would try and make up time on the flight. Do they usually go slow through the air? Was he going to weave in and out of the traffic to try and get there quicker?
An uneventful 7 hour flight except that I felt motion sickness for most of it. A great relief when we touched down and I managed to throw up, after which I felt much better.
Japanese dinner at the airport. Guess which meal is for Hamish, and which one is for 'I've recently thrown up' Shaun.
Hopefully I can start being more adventurous tomorrow.
The Japanese have this incredible system of sending luggage on ahead of you, so we swapped our large pack with camping gear for this piece of paper. Hopefully we will meet again in the boot of our Japanese car in Hokkaido.
Cheap airline tickets means you arrive at Narita and take a 1 hour express train to Tokyo. We managed to work out how to buy a train card and find the right platform.
Finally we arrived in Shinagawa, one stop after Tokyo and Hamish navigated us to 7-Eleven to get some cash and pick up some breakfast. On the way we happened to walk through a Pachinko parlour.
Gambling is illegal in Japan but you can still use these Japanese poker machines. With great skill you press a button and some balls roll down a shoot and depending on how many balls go into the special box you get points and with those points you win a fluffy toy or a piece of gold jewellery. If you know what you're doing you can take the gold jewellery down the road to a shop which will give you cash for it. Nothing like gambling! In Australia we're much more advanced - we skip out the middle man. Finding our hotel, we were glad to flop into bed. Looking forward to the start of our Japanese adventure tomorrow.
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