Mrs P has generously permitted me to travel to Japan for a few weeks. She’s a keeper, obviously, though I imagine she may enjoy the break from me almost as much as I will enjoy returning to Tokyo, and wandering around, drinking coffee and marvelling at the differences in life there and at home in Ireland.
My journey should have started at 06:45 at Belfast’s City Airport but due to Heathrow’s air traffic control system being updated from analogue to digital, we were held on the stand for an additional thirty-five minutes or so.
I call this Corporate Warrior at 31,00ft.
Even with many years and flights under my belt, I still get a buzz from the miracle of flight. Landing at any major airport such at Heathrow is always impressive; the scale of such companies as British Airways, Emirates and others blows me away.
My departure from Gate C55 on BA007 to Haneda, Tokyo was on time. In Terminal 5, the scale of engineering is mind-blowing and a snippet of that can be seen in the photograph above.
Being a slight obsessive, I had chosen which movies I wanted to watch before I left home. I managed to get through Dunkirk (Okay at best) and Downsized (awful), before I enjoyed an excellent Sesame Chicken meal. Then, as we flew between Murmansk and the Gulf of Ob (no, me neither) at 39,000ft, I started watching Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri. An enjoyable but depressing film is the best way to put it, I think.
The glass of red I had with dinner took it’s toll and I nodded off for two hours or so, wakening around an hour before we landed in Tokyo. An hour after touchdown, I was on board the Haneda Monorail that links the airport to Hamamatsucho Station, and from there it was an easy change to the Yamanote Line to reach Okachimachi Station and a short walk to my hotel.
Cool fedora-wearing dude on the Yamanote Line.
On my 2012 trip to Japan, Australia and the US, I stayed at the Villa Fontaine, Ueno, so I was much more confident this time in finding the hotel. Poor planning on my part, though, as I arrived at the hotel at 09:00 and had to wait six hours for my room to become available. I booked my suitcase and bag into reception and went for a wander.
Okachimachi Park is a delight, and was only 500m away. Here’s a short video that can describe it better than I can.
It is a well used community park with dog walkers, parents with small children, workers on breaks stopping by for a smoke and lots of others, and, like almost everywhere else here, it’s spotless.
After that, it was Starbucks for coffee and another wander. I had unpacked by 15:30 and was in bed for fourteen hours of almost unbroken sleep.
More tomorrow…
Forever Chasing Light 