Goodness, it's been a while since I've posted here. I had started to write a blog post whilst in the UK, but I was so busy and, to be honest, having far too good a time to really do it properly. Below is what I wrote!
Wow, I'm writing this blog post on my sofa in my front room, there's a log fire burning in front of me, and Come Dine With Me is on the telly! This certainly feels a lot different to how I spent my evenings in Tokyo...
I haven't blogged since the day before I set off to come back home nine days ago, so I'll resume where I stopped last time!
I got up at 5am on Wednesday the 21st, before packing the last couple of things into my suitcase and popping to the Konbini to get a sandwich for breakfast. I left my guesthouse at 5:45 to take the train to Kichijoji, arriving there just after 6, and then getting on my Odakyu bus to take me to Narita airport at half past.
Um, so yeah, shall I continue where I left off? I got to the airport in just over an hour, and went through check-in and security far quicker than I had anticipated, so it turned out I had almost three hours to kill at Narita. It didn't go too slowly though; I just read some more of 1Q84 (Haruki Murakami's latest book) and listened to music on my iPod. At 11:45 we took off and started the twelve-hour flight back to London Heathrow. Unlike the time at the airport, however, this certainly didn't go quickly. I am really, really bad at sleeping on planes; there's not enough leg room at all and I can't curl up in any way. So instead I thought I'd just watch lots of films and hope the time went quickly, but it turned out that JAL has a pretty poor selection...I did watch Mrs Doubtfire though, which I hadn't watched for years! So aside from that I listened to plenty of music, enjoyed the unlimited supply of free lager and eventually got sozzled enough to doze for a couple of hours.
After what seemed about a week and a half, we landed in London. I was relieved to get off that plane, but I still had plenty of travelling to do. I had to go to a different terminal to get my connecting flight up to Manchester, and for some reason had to go through security twice to get there. Eventually I got through to the waiting lounge, and had to wait three hours to get my next flight. I passed the time by chatting to Ayu and Mum on the phone, and I did a lot of people watching. One thing that really surprised me was how relatively fat British people are compared to the Japanese! I mean I always knew that we have a bit of a national weight problem, but it doesn't startle you until you've lived in a country where a 32 inch waist for men is L size.
Finally, I was able to get on the bmi flight up to Manchester. The plane itself was tiny! The cabin had 18 rows of three seats; one on the left, then the aisle, then two on the right. I was at the very back on the left of the aisle. Now this flight was quick, only about 45 minutes. We landed in a fair bit of turbulence, and then I went to pick up my bags. But the journey still wasn't over! After getting my bag I had to transfer over to the Manchester Airport railway station, and then wait another half an hour to get the Transpennine Express to Leeds. After an hour and a half on that train, I had to leave Leeds Station and get a taxi back to Otley. But then, finally, I was back home!!
I think that's quite enough for now, I hope you can see how exhausting the whole journey was, it's tired me out just writing about it. I'll write about my actual holiday soon :)
James
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