Sat 1 March 2014
The alarm began beeping at 2am after too few hours of sleep. A hurried breakfast and a cup of tea before
Paul got home from work and took me (Janine) to airport. It felt so strange to be going
by myself. It was all very normal
through check in, immigration and customs.
It was a good flight to Malaysia.
I finished reading The Happiest Refugee by Ahn Do and began a new book.
As I went through the transfer gate into the departure hall at Kuala Lumpur,
thinking “Oh yes, I know where I am I have been here before’, a being with a
mountain beard arose from a front row seat and got my attention. It had been been quite a long month apart and
it was very good to see him again. He had dropped Courtney on the Perth flight
earlier that morning after spending a month in Nepal. Now we are off together for a month in Japan and Vietnam.
The flight to Osaka was fully booked and we didn’t have
seats next to each other. So when I
wasn’t trying to catch up on sleep we stood in the galley area talking –
getting in everyone’s way really.
The plane arrived at Kansai, Osaka at 10.25pm amid 9 degrees
and rain. We followed the crowd into a
beautifully clean monorail and zipped quite a distance to the arrivals
hall. I was very happy when the luggage
appeared. The process through
immigration and customs was quick and easy.
Got some Yen from an ATM (5x$100 notes) and outside to locate a taxi.
All the taxi drivers are dressed in suits with white gloves
and the vehicles are immaculate. We are
then driven the reasonably short distance to Seagull Hotel with classical music
gently playing on the cars stereo. Initially
worried the driver would not want to give change for $100 – there wasn’t much!! We were a bit shocked when the fare came to
$54. Lucky we didn’t go all the way into
the city. The reason that we stayed in a
hotel near the airport was that the trains stopped for the night at about the
time we landed.
The hotel staff don’t speak English but are very charming
and we can understand what they are telling us. Elevator up to the room which
is compact and functional. Then we hear
the person in the next room coughing and realise that this is one of the hotels
with paper thin walls. Shhhh. It is
cheap though.
In our happy coats.
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