Leaving Honolulu going to Tokyo weird but we left on 8th July and 9th July

Leaving Honolulu going to Tokyo

Weird we leave on 8th July at 10.30am and arrive on the 9th July at 1.30pm

Thankfully it is only an 8 hour flight!!  Certainly crossing some time zones today!!

We are being collected by the Shuttle Bus at 8am so we are up and around early enough to see the sunrise from our apartment!

 

The sun is rising behind those tower blocks and behind Diamond Head

 

Certainly been a while since we have been in possession of keys so here we are locking up of the apartment that has done us well for the past week

 

Amy is all ready to get going!!

 

Very clever idea this is where we collected the keys from and where we leave the keys in a KeySafe with a combination code on it!

 

Here we are at the entrance waiting to be collected by the Shuttle Bus

 

Here is the bus to take us to the airport so there are only 3 seats left one in the front with the driver and 2 in the back

 

The golf course at the end of the road and I'm amazed at the amount of houses up on the hill

 

This guy is driving a bit slower so here is the hospital that the driver when we arrived pointed out, it looks massive and thankfully we didn’t need to visit!

 

Well done Col for taking the selfie quickly whilst the driver was dropping off the last customers at their terminal!

 

That’s us at the terminal for United to get checked in but then a near catastrophe happened…….

 

 

the Singapore sticker had started to come off Amy’s suitcase, thankfully we had some super glue in our bags from when we had to stick on the Moscow magnet that we turned into a sticker!  So disaster avoided, let’s get checked in!!

 

We have done so well with flight delays but here we encountered our first one, well I wouldn’t really call it a delay as it was only half an hour as the aeroplane had arrived late in from Tokyo but not by long at all!  Our hearts did sink though when we saw delayed on the board though but then the smiles came back when it said only by 30 minutes!!

 

Here is the biggest aircraft we have been on since our Big Holiday Adventure started way back on 12th April!!

 

Our last of our US $ being spent with Hawaiian water, thumbs up from Amy as she also got some strawberry gummy sweets with the last of the money too!

 

Millie, Amy’s monkey getting a photo with the aeroplane as Amy didn’t want a photo taken.  It is surprising that Amy doesn’t decline more often really with the amount of photo’s that we, or should I say I take, but sometimes she surprises me by going up to things, turns round and smiles without the camera even being out, she knows the drill and probably knows the question will be asked in a couple of minutes anyhow!!!

 

Millie started messing about and pretended to kiss the nose of the aeroplane or maybe I led Millie astray!!

 

And look there are the stairs to go upstairs on the aeroplane, not us though!

 

And look at the space the first class have got with leg room, personal TV’s and drinks holders next to them and I presume their seat goes into a bed position too, WOW!!

 

Here is us at the cheap seats near the back on row 54, no individual TV’s for us though which has surprised us with an 8 hour flight but then again we have gone the cheapest flight and seats available so we’ve got to take what the cookie crumbles as we can’t have everything!!  So not only is this the biggest aeroplane which holds 374 passengers it also will be the fastest ride too with a cruising speed of 567mph, whooah!!  But this is when my anxieties come in, as in my head this aircraft with all these people, baggage and the weight of the aeroplane itself shouldn’t be able to get off the ground!!!  Anyway it does and we are up in the sky heading to Narita Airport, Tokyo in Japan, WOW!!!

 

So I have great company surrounding me Colin with his iPad playing Candy Crush (and yes he played this for the whole EIGHT hours!)

 

And Amy with her iPad and little old me in the middle of the pair of them with my laptop getting the journal and blog up-to-date.  With me applying for my job that took the majority of my time up, so no blog was done in Honolulu!

 

See you later Honolulu and the view over Waikiki Beach and Diamond Head, beautiful!

 

Diamond Head, at least our aeroplane window was clean today so some beautiful shots!

 

Never look back always forward but that is cool seeing another aeroplane away to take off with the skyline around the airport!

 

Now isn’t that beautiful even if I do say so myself, I was stretching over Amy taking the photo’s admiring all these beautiful views whilst the pair of them were stuck to their games and missed the free show nature was giving them!

 

 

 

The runway with beautiful sparkling water each side

 

The last glimpse before we swerved round to follow our flight path

 

That was a bit unexpected we got a meal on the flight, Amy got Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli which Colin loved, Amy ate her salad, bun, my bun and her chocolate brownie.  Think Amy was trying to chew something over at the side of her mouth with only two teeth in the middle of her mouth at the front makes biting something a bit tricky!  She is certainly finding it easier to eat now that tooth has come out though!!

 

And here is the adult meals Chicken with Jasmine rice, carrots, sweetcorn and peas (all of Colin and I’s favourite veggies!) and salad, yummy!!  Colin said that was the best aeroplane food he has EVER had!!  We got complimentary water and pop.  Near the end of the flight we got a croissant (Amy’s favourite) and fruit salad, so that was a fair swap Amy had my bun and I had her fruit salad and Colin ate my croissant!

 

Watching the white fluffy clouds, this was before we hit turbulence that I found quite bad as I grabbed Colin’s hand for reassurance but Amy looked at me and said ‘It’s just like a ride!’ and went back to her game and Colin said ‘Can I have my hand back so I can play my game’ real nice to get some care and compassion from my troops when I felt scared as I just don’t like turbulence.  When turbulence happens that is when my anxieties come back that this aeroplane shouldn’t be up in the sky, funny things that go through your head but it certainly doesn’t stop me flying I just don’t like turbulence!!!  The turbulence was so bad the pilot announced for the flight attendants to sit down so that shows how bad it was as they normally just soldier on but not this time!!  The turbulence lasted about half an hour and then happened intermittently after that!!

 

Millie having a snooze in Yorkie’s arms, awh cute!  Amy had to retreat to play with her toys as her iPad battery was flat, my laptop battery was flat too and Colin’s iPad was still going so no talking from his side of the camp he was on a mission with Candy Crush!!

 

And look we are nearly at our destination of Tokyo and look there is Beijing our next stop, how exciting!!

 

Arriving into Tokyo and it is greener than I expected

 

There is a golf course hiding in amongst those trees

 

And another golf course

 

Brakes on we have landed!!!!  Exciting we are in Japan, wow!!  We are now 5,936 miles away from London, eeek!!  And we are now forward a day, it is now 9^th July, great day for the budget on the 8^th though ha ha!!! 

 

These cleaners just reminded me of Ghostbusters, watch out they are going in!!!!  Who you gonna call??

 

 

Oh yeah this way for baggage claim!!  Can't you tell that is what the green writing tells you??!?!?

 

Thankfully they had the signs in Japanese, Chinese and English!

 

Woop woop!!  Amy has looked up her Hello Kitty World Travel Top Trumps which we played before we travelled and it has cards for London, Paris, Brussels, Tokyo, Beijing and gives details of miles from London, beauty of the city and things to do.  The cards also tell you how to say hello in the different cities and we have one for Tokyo so Amy looks up Hello in Japanese from her cards!  This is the second place on our adventure, first one was Russia, that we don’t know anything related to their language.  So Amy enlightened us Konnichiwa is hello, ok so as we are going down the escalators there are people bowing with their hands together saying ‘Konnichiwa’, what a nice welcome to Tokyo!

 

So we have had a nice welcome and then we come across signs asking if you have been unwell on the flight or before getting on your flight if you answer ‘yes’ you go down a separate part of the corridor and well I think you are doomed by the welcoming committee waiting for you, the guy with the mask on!!  We answered ‘no’ so went down the other part of the corridor and went through the big signs ‘Quarantine'

 

Yippee we have managed to get through Passport Control where we had to have a photo and our both right and left fingers scanned then Customs to say that we didn’t have loads of cash or any meat with us!  It was funny as we had brought some chicken roll from Honolulu onto the flight and a couple of buns.  We thought that we would make a sandwich for Amy on the flight, not knowing we would get food so when we were standing waiting for our suitcases I remembered we had the chicken in my bag, eeek!!!  Amy and I went to the toilet and got rid of the chicken in the bin, phew as when we came out of the toilet there were sniffer dogs around the baggage claim!!

 

Hee hee all of our bags have arrived!!  And funny as every airport we arrive at we always say who is waiting for us at the exit and then we walk out and pretend to run to somebody, pretend to grab someone’s flowers or pretend to see someone we know but then we just go ‘oh well no-one here let’s get to the hotel!’ keeps us entertained and makes us chuckle at each airport, crazy buffoons we are!!

 

Ok next challenge is to get to the hotel, yep that looks clear as mud and think we need to get the 14.44 train?!?!?!?!

 

The give-away photo, yes we need to get on the 14.44 train to Shinjuku as that is where our hotel is!!

 

Now the fun part getting the tickets but the girl behind the desk has a tiny bit of English, enough to get by so we are sorted, tickets in hand and off we go!!

 

There is the train route so we head to Tokyo and then out to Shinjuku, ok off we go!

 

Come on Col the girls are through the gate, put your ticket in and then we can head to the train

 

Here we are and we are expecting this train to leave on time!

 

Here we are on the train and the carriage is pretty empty and quiet, no mobile phone’s allowed and it even has a sign up saying be considerate with noise from keyboards when using laptop devices, so no wonder it is oh so quiet!!

 

And sure enough a minute later the train left the station!  We arrive in Shinjuku at 16.07 which I am sure we will arrive at 16.07!!

 

Views from the train and they do say that you will see new with old in Tokyo and here you can see the top of a Pagoda (a tiered tower) just behind the industrial site

 

Amy catching up with her journal!!

 

We are flying by some paddy fields

 

A view of the Skytree Tower with clouds blocking the view of the spire

 

We have arrived at 16.07 and we are fascinated by the drinks dispensers, what you buying us Col???

 

And here we are in the station but we have no clue which exit to take as this station is absolutely MASSIVE and so busy!  Our google directions say our hotel is only a 7 minute walk yeah but from which exit????? 

So we find a map that is all in Japanese, not helpful at all.  So we decided to head out of the East exit as maybe we will get an idea of where we are if we just get out of the station building??  So we head out and eh no still no clue so we stand in the humid heat for a few minutes starting to sweat from the humid heat and also from the stress of where are we?????  We spy another map which is in English and look hooray it has our hotel on it so that makes us go back through the station from East exit where we are to West exit and then it is just down the road, phew!!!

So we tackle through the busy station again and get the lift down with our suitcases.  It is hilarious as we are waiting for the not very big lift with our 3 cases and all our hand luggage when a man darts in front of us when the lift doors open and as we were getting the cases in!!  So now Colin is chuntering as you could imagine so I trap the guy with the cases and hope that he wants off at the next floor as I wouldn’t let him off and Colin ends up having to squeeze in the lift with his rucksack.  It is hilarious really and no the guy didn’t need off that was a shame but when we got to our floor he was trying to push past the cases, just how rude but we are going to have to accept this is the culture and also we can’t complain as we can’t talk any Japanese!!!  What funny situations are we going to get into over the next few days!!

 

Here is our view when we got out of the West Exit, wow and it is absolutely tipping down rain, oh great!!  So I fish Amy and I’s jacket out of the suitcases and away we go down the road and in theory we are only a 7 minute walk according to Google Maps it might be shorter with us tanking down the road in the rain ha ha!!

 

Wow the place is busy and it makes it harder with umbrella’s thrown in the mix too!!

 

 

Walking down the road, wow this is a real eye opener with all the lights!

 

 

So across this busy junction, the biggest we have ever seen is our hotel the brown building Ibis Hotel.  Just look at the amount of people on the crossing too, this place is BUSY!!

 

 

 

 

Closer view of our hotel just to tackle across the busy crossing and we will be there!!  And how perfect is that it has a McDonald's at the bottom of the hotel!!!

 

 

But the next challenge is to get up the skinniest escalator we have ever seen too!!

 

Here we are room 522, on the fifth floor.  Now we are not expecting much from this hotel room, we have 3 single beds booked.  But that is because we stayed in the Ibis Hotel in Sydney and it was a compact room so we are expecting the same so here we go let’s see what we have got!

 

Here we are, compact for sure!!

 

Colin checking out the freebies we have got as we have no shower gel left so hope there is shower gel, don’t want to waste baggage allowance on shower gel if we can get away with it until Adelaide.  Phew there is shower gel, shampoo, conditioner, toothbrushes, hairbrushes, shower cap and …….

 

 

a fancy toilet that can be a bidet too, the weird bit is when you sit on the toilet it starts draining water into the toilet, it doesn’t wet you but certainly unnerved me when I first sat on it as wasn’t sure where the water was coming from or where it was going to go!!!  When Amy sat on the toilet for the first time she jumped off so quick when she heard the water running it was if the toilet seat was burning hot and burning her booty, funny!!! 

Unusual experiences we are having here in Tokyo!!!!

 

Colin tries to open the window with no real joy, our window is frosted over so we can’t see our view but we managed to peep out and we look onto the air conditioning units on a roof out the back of the building, no wonder they have it frosted over!  I unpack a couple of essentials, pyjamas and toiletries to find that my mousse has been pierced and the bag that I put it in to save it leaking has been pierced too so my mousse is now spilt all over my new well not so new now Norway jacket!!  So into the bath to do the washing it goes, funny the mousse is making some cool bubbles but hopefully it doesn’t stain my jacket!!  It hasn't, phew!!

So we have no idea what time our body clock is saying to us but Amy is hungry and ideally we have a McDonald’s below our hotel.  So here is hoping that they have an English menu like what Moscow had???  And that was a NO, so with broken English and lots of finger pointing to pictures we order our food but then we go to pay by card and they don’t accept cards, oh what we have just wasted 5-10 minutes ordering our food and we can’t pay for it!!!  So I ask where we can get a bank to take money out but she points in one direction but we come out of there and head back to the hotel reception to ask where the nearest bank is and he directs us round the corner for an ATM.  So Colin braves the storm of the rain and heads around the corner but comes back with NO DOSH TOSH!!  The ATM machines will only accept Japanese cards so no Japanese money so where to now for food???

 

 

Colin popped into the convenience store next door to the hotel and they sell convenience food and will accept cards, ok let’s go and get some food!!!

 

So we got some chicken nuggets or certainly the picture of chicken led us to believe it was chicken so Colin was the first one to try the chicken, he took one bite, spat it out and said ‘yuck the chicken is brown I’m not eating that!!’  But then expected Amy to try her allegedly chicken nuggets, well for one thing you didn’t sell it well to us and your face said it all so no thanks we don’t want to try ours!!!

 

A potato thing like a Hash Brown so Colin takes a bite and says ‘mmm it’s a bit greasy’ Amy would you like a bite?’  he hasn’t learnt yet has he that you can’t be off with something and then expect your 8 year old daughter to try it after you have derogatory comments!!  So Amy give her her due she did have a bite but then said ‘tummy full’ I don’t think her tummy was full but I don’t blame her really especially with the faces Colin has been pulling, hilarious but it wasn’t the moment to be taking photographs as we were all feeling a little tense from our escapades!

 

Colin and I got a sweetcorn thing!  Colin took the first bite and said ‘it’s alright it has sweetcorn and stuff in it!’ it was nice enough really but thankfully I didn’t start off the mission for food hungry so that was enough for me!

 

We had buns left over from Hawaii so that is what Amy had for her tea, look at that tired little munchkin!

Everyone off to bed after a challenging start in Tokyo!!

Tomorrow is another day to get up and at them!!