Awake, showered, packed and ready to go to breakfast by 07:45. We stepped outside to find it was raining and returned to our little cafe that sold a decent breakfast for a reasonable price. The cafe also provide free internet usage of which we made good use this morning. Unfortunately, my order was confused and I ended up with more food and less drink than desired but it was soon resolved and I think I got some free tea out of it. Having made the hotel reservation in Tokyo the other day Ian e-mailed one of our diving companions that we met in the Maldives onboard the Blue Shark Two in hope that we might receive a copy of this underwater video he filmed during our dive safari last November.
We checked out of the Prince Hotel, where the receptionist resembling Gladys from Hi-de-hi had learned to how to smile, and waited for the airport shuttle bus for 30 minutes in the rain. We were still receiving many looks from the South Korean population but we assume that Korea doesn't receive many Caucasian tourists, certainly not backpackers and probably little, if any, since the World Cup final last year.
At 10:15 we checked in to our code shared flight with All Nippon Airways despite neither the flight number nor time appearing on any of the departure boards. It was then that we discovered that our tickets were wrong again and the 12:10 flight was actually 10:55! It's a good job we arrive at airports at sensible times! It is perhaps very fortunate that we do because if we had missed the flight we may have found that all our remaining flights had been voided, in accordance with the Star Alliance rules. We were due to board immediately so we proceeded straight to the gate. We were the last people to check in. Leaving Incheon we had to remove our footwear for x-ray! At the gate I was delighted to find that we were boarding a Boeing 747, the first time I had ever set foot inside such a giant aircraft! I couldn't contain my excitement! I have been hoping for this since we arrived at Heathrow International Airport in September last year! Eighteen flights ago!
The aircraft was loaded with passengers, a surprise considering our last two recent flights in Asia. We were seated next to three Spaniards who we guessed might be professional badminton players. They each had a decent sized bag of rackets with them and as they seated themselves they were asked if they would have their photograph taken with an avid fan, to which they obliged and they all huddled at the aft of the plane, which left me to glance across to my neighbour's seat pocket to read the name on her boarding pass.
The departure time was delayed until 11:20 and then we made a 35 second acceleration down the runway. We encountered some nasty turbulence throughout the flight and I diguised it by listening to music, then I discovered that there was an audio channel dedicated to the flight deck, available at the pilot's discretion. I tuned in to it and enjoyed listening to the commands for the rest of the flight. They are a professional and polite bunch of people, pilots.
I had a bit of a moment to myself when I went to the toilet and found the need for more sanitary wear than I was armed with. On searching the facilities, amid the turbulence and the fear that I had broken the toilet as the flush refused to stop, I discovered a drawer containing boxes of sanitary wear for women's utilisation. Sadly, United Airlines don't stock the latest range and I reluctantly donned a sanitary towel that was so damn chunky the end result made me look like I had had a rapid sex change!
I got myself together from a fit of laughter and went for a walk around the cabin of the aircraft. I walked all the way from the back of the aircraft, where we were seated, to the front of the business class passengers, but behind the eight or so rows of seats of first class passengers in the nose and there I was asked by a flight attendant if he could be of assistance. I said I was just stretching my legs but asked if I would be allowed upstairs. He said I could if I was quick, so I raced up the flight of stairs, took a super quick glance at the few first class seats of the top deck, and retreated to the main fuselage. I then walked back to my seat at the back of the plane. It was nice to take a look around, although I don't think the business class passengers were particularly pleased to see an economy class passenger in their seating area!
It was quite a bumpy flight all said and I was pleased when we touched down 1 hour 47 minutes later at 13:07. There was no reverse thrust to slow us down on landing but we stopped very quickly. I was quite surprised.
We passed quickly through immigration and collected our luggage. At customs we were stopped by officals so they could check passenger's luggage, we assume randomly, and my bag was selected again for inspection. Out came the shoes, the main bag was rummaged through, the top section was peered into, then another, both side pockets were emptied. The bottom section was opened up, things were prodded and searched. I'm now waiting for Ian's turn!
We took the expensive airport bus to Ikebukuro and then faced the wind as we struggled around the streets looking for our hotel. My back was hurting plenty, I think I have pulled a muscle from lugging my backpack up and down lots of steps in South Korea and I was very pleased when we found the hotel, with a little bit of help although we had managed to find the back of it. We checked in, admired our accommodation, and relaxed for a couple of hours, writing our journals and snoozing. Ian had already tried on his komono that the hotel provides in the room. It's a pity we have the main station directly behind the hotel but the room is very nice and comfortable.
At 20:00 we walked the streets of Ikebukuro and finding very little by way of translation into English we chose an Italian which seemed to be popular with the locals. Unfortunately the entire menu was in Japanese except for the headings 'pizza', 'pasta' etc, much like we found in South Korea. We managed to communicate what we wanted largely down to the waitress's broken English and very much not down to our lack of Japanese! The meal was good. On leaving the restaurant we found a bakery and supplemented our dinner with a sweet treat, fortunately the chocolate looking pastry was chocolate and not the red bean extract that we had been so used to finding elsewhere in Asia, much to our disappointment!
The Dai Ichi Inn supplied us with free internet usage coupons for the cyber cafe in the basement so we spent our free 90 minutes playing on the internet and finding functions of the unfamiliar keyboard that temporarily hindered our actions and displayed many Japanese characters.
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.