Today was our last day in Japan, and was mostly a travelling day. We were booked on a 1:33pm bullet train and an evening flight home. Unfortunately I think I’ve only got 1 pic for all of today.
We more or less just hung around our hotel until check out at 12pm packing our bags and watching a movie about Stephan Hawking on TV.
We checked out and left our bags with concierge so we could have a last look around the shops.
We headed underground to have a look around porta, as we really hadn’t seen much of it. It goes further then it looks, and then there’s a short hallway, which joins onto another underground shopping centre, which goes on even further.
I wasted some money on some really pretty blingy hair accessories – which I still haven’t worked out how to use.
At around 1:00pm we picked up our bags from Hotel Granvia and headed into the train station. We asked for directions to the right platform and waited there for the train. There wasn’t a nice air conditioned waiting room like there was at Tokyo, so we waited with everyone else in the heat.
We had another quick and seamless ride back to Tokyo, and once again found that one minute it would be rainy and crappy outside, then we’d pass through a tunnel and find ourselves in blue skies with the sun shining brightly. Weird…
We transferred at Tokyo station onto the Narita express and continued on the journey. The narita express is great, they have TV screens which rotate between the news and whether flights from the airport are leaving on time or are delayed. Our flight was apparently on time!
Unfortunately once we got to Narita airport there was some confusion with our tickets. We couldn’t get through the turnstiles and could not work out why. We weren’t the only ones who were stuck either. There was quite a line up of people at the larger gate trying to work out why their tickets weren’t allowing them through the turnstiles.
When it got to our turn we were advised that we had to pay more for our ticket… I really don’t get why… We’d paid for our train rides all the way from Kyoto to Narita airport and the tickets specifically said they included the Narita express, but for some reason we still had to pay something like an extra 1400Y to get through…
Maybe someone here can explain why we had to pay extra?
It didn’t matter too much though, as I was able to use the rest of my Japanese Yen to get through, and didn’t have to worry about having worthless Yen once we arrived in Australia.
We checked in for our flight and sent our bags off, and decided to try and find some dinner, as DH was getting hungry and grumpy.
We caught the monorail over towards our gate to find a sit down restaurant to relax in, but there were only 2 food options, a noodle house and a little convenience store like place. We didn’t really want food from either place, so we thought we’d go back across to the other side of the air port and try our luck over there. So back on the monorail we went.
Narita might be really well organised and efficient, but after going through security it’s pretty crappy. Seriously there are next to no food options, a handful of duty free, all selling the same stuff.
Eventually we found a counter service restaurant that had a menu that appealed and plenty of tables to eat at.
I didn’t get photos, sorry, but DH had a wasabi beef hamburger, which he really enjoyed and I had some fried chicken, which was OK, but nothing to write home about, and we shared some chips.
Eventually we moved to our gate and boarded another fully booked flight home.
It was another quick uneventful flight. I think I watched two movies, and slept a bit.
We arrived in Sydney pretty tired and smelly. There was a long nasty line at customs and immigration and it was moving slowly. We let a woman in front of us who was worried about missing her connecting flight. Eventually we were waved through and headed outside to where we’d parked our car.
Stupidly we had boarded in Japan during 40 degree temperatures – and were dressed accordingly – and landed in Sydney to minus temps as it was something like 6:30am. It wasn’t very nice and straight away I missed the heat. It may have only been a couple of hundred metres from the door to our car, but wearing shorts and a singlet top made it very uncomfortable.
We then settled in for a five hour drive home. I tell you what there is no longer drive than 5 hours when you’ve just gotten off a long flight. We’ve done it a couple of times and it never gets any easier…
Here's my stash!
And my puppy dog in his Mickey Jumper!
The drinks, the hand fans, the slippers and the baby outfit and a few other things are all souvenirs. So we didn't really buy much
So that's pretty much the TR completed! I promise once I get around to editing all of my pics I'll post my favourites. I have so many more compared to the ones I've already posted!
