Like kids at christmas we were up at 3am and off in the taxi to Heathrow! The big journey has started :D
We arrived to a very quiet terminal 2...
which had a really lovely light display above a fish restaurant:
We eat a pretty yummy breakfast - Smoked salmon for Ryan and a Mexican brekky mix for me!
During boarding (actually moving in the queue towards the plan entrance part - Ryan lost his boarding pass...
But we found it again after 10 mins of bag unpacking!
We were assured by our flight attendance during our boarding queue shuffle that our first plane to Frankfurt was the best plane they had, a no frills workhorse of a Boeing 737 - another way to say something else I think?
We settled in for out 2.5hr flight.... Just as we had eaten, listened to announcements, and chatted, we settled in for the second hour of the flight. Immediately afterwards landing was announced...
Turns out we didn't take into account the landing time timezone change! Welcome to Frankfurt (briefly)
Then another plane journey (Frankfurt airport is so much better, free Xboxing, plug-in pods and loads more standing walkers!)
Our final plane was comfy, and the amount of films to choose from was amazing. We were moved to our own row (There were lots of free seats, and the mask-wearing Japanese lady was next to us was eternally grateful, did we smell?)
A glass of wine later and we 'unsuccessfully' tried to nap!
And spent the time watching gorgeous cloud landscapes, eating plane food and watching films
We finally arrived!
The first navigation was to the trains. We had some rough instructions:
Challenges started with how to buy a ticket.....
Trains seemed to stop and start, and we changed lines a few more times, but we made it to Kawachi iwahune station, in the pouring rain!
We found the place pretty easily, to be confronted by a Japanese cleaning lady who clearly spoke no English (we were supposed to leave our luggage in the laundry managers room). We tried to communicate that we just wanted to leave the bags and come back at 2pm when the room would be ready, but she wouldn't let us leave and eventually put me on the phone to a translator who told me... she would take our luggage to the room, come back at 2pm...
After a 15 hour journey, we spent 2 hours walking in the torrential rain to explore the area. We walked in what should have been a square, but actually looked more like this (with a few double backs) and the supermarket we thought there were '2' of, well we must have passed it from different view points, there is only one of those!
We went back for precisely 2 - after a quick Maccy D's we found in the supermarket.
The attempt:
2 big macs, a coke and a non-fizzy drink.
The result?
1 big mac,
large chips
a coke,
AND a GIANT COKE (about a litre!)
My turn to order:
The attempt:
A Mcflurry.
The result...well almost.
We entered the room and it was as compact as the reviews said!
A teeny tiny studio, but with overly limited cooking facilities...
Finally time to sleep... for 16 hours!
