| From: "Kate McMullin" <kate@brong.net> Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 19:56:32 +1000 (EST) |
The flights were long and boring, as usual! We watched movies and ate and slept and sat there... But we're in London now! When we got off the plane in Osaka, there was a guy holding a sign "Katie Princess of the Universe", which was kinda tempting, but I couldn't deal with being called Katie for very long. Later we saw a local bus, which had its web-site on the rear window: kate.co.jp Haven't looked at it yet... The hotel in Osaka was really nice, with great air-con. Osaka was really warm and humid, so we had the temperature in our room down to 18 degrees. On the flight over there was this really annoying Australian guy (23) who kept drinking and talking so loudly. We heard everything about his private life (and public life) - more info than you could've wanted! It was his first time out of Australia and we was very excited. We got talking to the poor girl sitting next to him (who got very little sleep), and it turned out that she manages a backpackers hostel in Pimlico, so we went there with her. It was a nice place, and quite convenient to everywhere. |
| From: brong@zebkrahn.brong.net (Bron Gondwana) Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 09:05:17 +1000 |
Got up relaxedly late, and strolled over to check in a good couple of hours early. Imagine my annoyance to discover that I couldn't get an exit row (we had one on the way out of Aus). We did manage to get a row with no seats in front though, slightly more space. Well, I did anyway - Kate had to be in the aisle behind me. Wandered back to breakfast and a lazy half an hour reading in the hotel room. Would have been nice to see Osaka, but it's too risky going off into an unknown city when your flight is about to leave! The view out the window was good though, some barges dredging and building land. Lots of boats around. We went back to the shops, and were waylaid by a bunch of young (probably 8 or so years old) Japanese children on a school trip to test their english skills on real native speakers! It was very cute - they asked us a few questions, and asked us to point out where we came from on a world map. Or course, by the time we'd finished all this, it was getting a little late, so we ran off to our plane. On the way, we ran into a lady we'd met in the passport queue coming off the plane on the way in (there was quite a group of people going right through - by that stage we were waving to each other and chatting whenever we saw another Aussie-flight person). She promised to show us around when we arrived in London (being a native and all that). This is Juliet who will be mentioned again later. On the flight, the guy who was going to be next to me swapped with Kate, then she and I swapped because the seat next to me was about the narrowest available, and she just didn't fit. This was a new plane, and they try to cram both the tray tables and the little TV remote control into the armrests, without making it any wider. Doesn't leave much space. Kate's already mentioned that they guy who swapped then got very drunk and was a real pain for everyone in the area. Grr. They shouldn't keep serving alcohol to people like that. Hilights of the flight were catching little bits of lots of movies because I kept channel hopping with my little personal TV, instead of just seeing the movie - whenver annoyingboy went away for a bit - bullshitting with Juliet about Australia (she's a journalist, and has written bits for Lonely Planet - she pointed out photos or hers in the London book) - seeing lots of Russia and Germany through the outside video cameras (or just leaning over and looking out the window!) But I'm writing too much detail.. I'm sure you're all bored by now. Um, Kate waltzed through with her British passport, while I spent half an hour in the queue. Grr. We missed Juliet through various sillyness, but it worked out in the end, because Amy who was sitting behind us, and getting the brunt of Mr Drunk Guy, kindly found us accomodation where she worked, and even waited for us while we worked out the getting money and train tickets stuff, while still dealing with big packs. It's really _REALLY_ handy to have one person who can mind the packs while the other goes and joins all the queues. Got to the hostel, walked up 5 floors of narrow stairs with all our packs (ouch), and just collapsed! |
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