Holy Delays Batman. I think I see another hold up on the horizon

So I have to admit, although it was unforeseen, I was quite enjoying the extra night in Japan, especially at someone else's expense. Only problem was, I didn't have the funds in my bank account to pull out any more money (You can only pull 10,000Y multiples from 7-11 ATMs). Fortunately I have people who love me, so Dean pull out some money and shared it with me.

After waking up late (I'm turning into such a princess), I got some pants on before the others got up/came in. We were getting hungry for breakfast, but Conrad in his single room was either lightly dozing or had just woken up when I phoned his room. He said he'd meet us downstairs, so we went down and sat in the lounge area outside the dining hall. This place has a chapel next to it (probably owned by the hotel), and there were gardens and a gazebo you could take your wedding photos in. There was a little fountain thingy as well, with half the water frozen and the other half flowing.. It looked cool so I took a picture while we were waiting. We soon got tired of waiting (a hungry clan member is never a happy clan member), so we started breakfast without him. Again it was a buffet affair. There were croissants, danishes, buns, waffles, pancakes, toast, bacon, scrambled egg, omelets made to order, as well as more traditional Japanese food. They had juices and cake and other stuff as well, but I wanted to try it all. Plus with trying to spend as little as possible, I figured a good breakfast would keep me full all day (which it did).

After breakfast, there was no packing to do, however I did need a shower, but with all the luggage packed up, I need underwear, so after going for a walk with Mum, I bought a fresh pair from 7-11, as well as socks, as the ones I had been wearing the day before, could knock a titan out at 10 paces with their smell. We got back but it was still only 11 o'clock, so Dean and I watched a couple of football matches that we'd been waiting to see. That pretty much sums up our day til we checked out at 4pm.

After checking out and waiting a couple of minutes, we were soon loaded on the bus to Narita. It's only a couple of kilometres, so we were there in no time. Problem was, our flight didn't leave til 9.20pm, so there was at least a couple of hours wait til the check-in opened. What else was a guy supposed to do but sleep? So I did, while the others went for a walk upstairs to the shops. Conrad was busy playing around with his ipad, but I curled up and slept for probably an hour. By this time it was getting close to check in time. Fortunately they opened the check-in counter early, but we could see there was going to be more frustrated Jetstar passengers. The Gold Coast flight had been cancelled this time, so there were some worried faces, until they were informed they were getting put up like we did for the night.

One thing I have to give the Narita staff (who must hate working for such a piddly airline) is they are efficient. The flight would have to have been booked out, but it only took them about 30mins to process all the passengers. With many people having skis/boards, this was actually a good effort. It was still about 3 hours til boarding, so we went upstairs and had some dinner. Nothing too flash, just a katsudon for me (although I was still full from breakfast!) and a shochu to help me sleep later on.

Unlike last time, we gave ourselves plenty of time to get through customs (a rather painless process in Japan), so we had left ourselves nearly an hour and a half to look around. We checked the liquor vendors, as well as other bits and pieces. I have to mention Liquors Hasegawa once more though. It's cheaper than even their own duty-free shops. A bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin (shouldn't it be PC'd to Mumbai Sapphire? :P) set Mum back 1580Y at LH (Even Donki had it for 1680Y). At the Narita Duty-free, it was 2000Y for the same bottle. At Cairns DF, it was $34! Double the price!!! Anyhow, after pottering around, Dean and I decided to head for a nightcap which we finished at 8.35. This gave us a good 15mins to get the shuttle to the outer wing, where our gate was.

So there we are at the gate, when we hear an announcement... The flights been delayed. Then at 8.50 another announcement saying the flight is delayed a little more. With all the delays and such, it ends up being 9.20 before we even get on the plane! Then after boarding we wait.... And wait... and wait... What's taking so long? Apparently there was a mix up with the baggage. In the end, the flight didn't leave until nearly 11pm! Add to that, Dean, Me, Whitney and Mum must have been sat in the row that got missed for cleaning, as there was drink residue, left over bits of rice and chips and fingerprints from some frolicking dirt child that had been on the flight over. Poor showing Jetstar.... They had to make it up to a lot of people, so free "Comfort packs" were given. At least the eye-masks made it easier to sleep with the guy in front of us seemingly reading all night. It wasn't great sleep, but if I hadn't been woken up for a craptastic free meal (they were really trying to get back some brownie points) I think I would have slept right up until we landed in Cairns, but that's a story for another day.

Queue Peer Gynt music...

It was Monday. Nothing good about Monday's according to Garfield, and I tend to agree. This was to be the day we headed for home. But I got a fantastic sleep. Didn't wake up until about 8.30, so I must have needed it and with an overnight flight with broken sleep planned, I would need all the sleep I could get. After grabbing a quick but rather unsatisfying breakfast from Cafe Pronto, we headed back to the room to get packed and ready to go. It had been nice staying at the Smile Hotel. We were left to our own devices, the rooms were bigger than the Center and were adequately furnished (though free wifi in the rooms would be one improvement) but ultimately, it's not the same as home, where you have your own room and are free to dance around in your underwear should you choose.

I always plan on travelling light, but by the end, it never ends up that way. To counteract my clothing purchases, I put as much of the clothes I had brought over in space bags and put them in the black suitcase. We borrowed a small, asmathic handheld vacuum from the maids, and sucked the big bag flatter, but had to make do with sitting on the smaller bags to let the air out. We got it all in though, and after putting our bottles of booze in our snowboard boots (keeps them protected very well) and sorting our snowboard bag out, we got everything sorted. Unfortunately, we wouldn't be able to Takkyubin our bags from the hotel to the airport. With the bags now weighing probably an extra 10kgs from when we arrived, we weren't looking forward to lugging them the 1 or 2 kilometres back to Tokyo station. Everyone wanted the easiest option, so it was to send Mum and Whitney in one taxi with all of their luggage, one of us (ended up being me) in another taxi with our black suitcase and all the backpacks while the other 2 lugged the snowboard bags the distance back to the station. I had an driver called Nishimura (I read the kanji of his name correctly - Yay!), but not wanting the old guy to hurt himself, I did all the lugging of the bags in and out of the boot and backseat.

It would still be another 10mins or so before the other 2 reached us, so I quickly popped downstairs to mail back Yoshi's spare mobile phone and wifi router (which hadn't worked for us, but it was probably a proxy setting we couldn't touch). After coming back up, it was only a couple of minutes before we saw Dean's little cap heading down the street. Once inside the station, we got our N'EX (Narita Express) tickets sorted first, before worrying about anything else. It was about 11.45, but to give ourselves enough time, we reserved our seats on the 1.03 train. This gave us enough time to go to the loo and buy some cakes. There was a crepe place, and I had fully intended on grabbing a crepe, but when we got there, it was either closing down, or moving everything out for refurbishment. What is it with my luck of crepe luck? It's crepe Ray.

I had to settle with stuff from Daimaru instead, so after grabbing a couple of bits of karaage chicken, I went to the confectionary level and decided on a Strawberry shortcake and Creme Caramel (something I don't think I've eaten that much of this time, but Mum does it best anyway) before heading back to the others, who had already gotten theirs. We now had about 30mins before the train left, so we headed for platform. This was one reason why I'm glad we Takkyubin'd the bags everywhere else. A 166cm, 32kg board bag is an unwieldy thing, and trying to to get it up and down escalators, into and out of lifts and on and off trains whilst trying not hit anyone is a mission.

We waited on the station platform (which is below ground 5 levels) for about 15mins, before one short train arrived. There was an american businessman who didn't know if this was the correct train, but once I explained it was only half of it, he said "That's stupid". I then explained that the Narita express can be taken in 2 different directions. One goes to Shinjuku and Ikebukuro (when coming from the airport), while the other goes to Yokohama and Odawara in the south. He didn't have anything to reply to this other than "Oh", especially as the next train arrived soon after and was joined in about 10secs.

After hopping on and getting ourselves sorted, we sat down to enjoy the journey. It was only after we got out of the underground tunnel and into the open air that I received any mobile signal. All of a sudden I had 2 messages, one from the Brisbane Council warning of bad weather for the SE, while the other one was from Jetstar. "Your flight has been cancelled" were the sum total of the words. I showed Dean, then Mum and Whitney, absolutely floored. If I had signal I would have received it at 12.54, nearly 10 mins before we boarded the train, but it wouldn't have done much good anyway, we still needed to go to the airport to get things sorted.

Once we got there, we tried getting information, but as it was only 2pm and the flight not leaving until 8.10 none of the Jetstar counters were open. The Narita staff didn't know much about the situation, so other than wait, there was not much we could do. At least we had some wifi to let people know. So after sending a couple of emails, I went upstairs to find the crepe place that I had seen 2 years ago. I must have angered someone, because the crepe place was not there. I searched high and low, but turned up nothing. I even asked a girl at another information desk, but nope, no crepe places. Damn it! I miss out on crepes again (I did have one in Harajuku though, so it's better than none at all). There were shops to buy souvenirs and restaurants around, but with limited funds, and having eaten my cake and creme caramel on the train, I wasn't really in need of food. I headed back towards where Dean and Conrad were, before passing out for about an hour. I must have just hit comatose when Mum shook me saying the others had gone to get something to eat. It was about 5.15pm now, so I didn't mind eating, so headed upstairs to find them. I did a couple of laps before finding the restaurant they were in and had just sat down to eat when I get a ring. I haven't really had any phone calls whilst over here and have avoided sending messages so my next bill isn't astronomical, but when your flight has been cancelled and a +613xxxxxxxx number calls you, you have to answer. There was a foreign lady on the phone and I had hoped that I wasn't being telemarketed overseas, because I wouldn't have found it funny, but fortunately it was a lady from Jetstar.

We had a brief conversation. She was informing me the flight had been cancelled (already knew that...) and apologising for the inconvenience. That's all very well and good, but a) how am I going to get home, and b) what was going to be done in the meantime. She said that they could stick us on the flight back to Cairns tomorrow night (the Gold Coast flight on Monday was fully booked apparently), so we had to take what we could get. Then I asked about accommodation. I can sleep anywhere, but the others wouldn't take too kindly to sleeping in the airport. She said that it was Jetstar's policy (in the small print) that they can cancel flights at anytime. So basically we were up the creek. Dean and I (after finishing eating) then spent the next half an hour running around trying to call reverse charges to our travel insurance company (which we supposed to call reverse charge before making a claim). Every number we tried either didn't work or we got some guy from KDDI saying he was unable to collect call that number... Great... In the end, Dean ended up using my phone to call them directly, and they advised that it would be $100 excess per policy if a claim had to be made, but said we were better off checking with the airline first. So we did. We trekked to the end of the check-in terminal (the Jetstar gates are A and B, while we were seated between E and H) to see a line up forming. It was for the Gold Coast flight, but there was a lady holding a Cairns sign and told us to join another line. Fortunately it didn't take too long (efficient airport staff) before we were told that we were being put up for the night, with dinner and breakfast included. By this time I had started getting an ulcer on the inside of my lip, so it was a bit of welcome relief.

After booking us in for the flight the following night, they gave us our marching orders, so we headed for the bus where a guy was holding up a sign for our hotel. We boarded the bus before we spent 5 mins or so driving to the hotel. It looked huge, especially in comparison to all the other hotels we had stayed at this trip. After getting inside, we were checked in and given our dinner and breakfast coupons. We hauled our gear up to the rooms (Dean and I were in a twin, Mum and Whitney in another, while Conrad got a single to himself), before meeting up again. We had only eaten an hour or so before at the airport, so we didn't feel like eating just yet (wouldn't have spent that money if we had known), so we headed to the top floor to the "Sky Lounge". It was a pretty swanky place, with dim lighting, jazz music playing, nice decor and a view of all the lights of the airport precinct. Dean and I grabbed a stress relieving beer, while Mum grabbed a Campari, bitters and soda for something to suit the location. We sat around letting the drinks soothe our frazzled nerves before we decided to head downstairs for dinner. It was a buffet... Not the best quality buffet I've ever had, but pretty good and for free, I wasn't complaining... just eating. I was stuffed to the gills, before Mum said that she wanted to get more money out. Fortunately there was a 7-11 just next door. She grabbed some money and drinks, which we shared, before we had to pass out from exhaustion.

Penultimate Lap

So today was Sunday, the day before we were due to ship out. We had planned on going to the meeting, but as the meeting wasn't on until 12.30 and we had already bought clothes, it meant that we could sleep in. I've been having a lot more sleep ins this time, as usually I'm up at dawn then have to amuse myself until the others get up. Doesn't matter though. The shops don't open til later and a well rested Steven is a happy Steven.

Well, today, we were dragging the chain compared to the girls, who were hungry. We said that we'd meet them at Jonathan's, so after they had already been seated, we brought up the rear. Today though, a bacon sandwich wasn't going to suffice, so I ordered the full-sized breakfast for 598Y. That included 2 eggs, a thick bit of toast, bacon, sausage, salad and drinks bar. I ended up getting 2 double-shot espressos from the machine, and it kept me alive and alert all day.

After breakfast, we headed back to the hotel to get ready. I was in dire need of a shower shave, so I enjoyed a decent one, before putting on my Sunday bests (well, actually they aren't my Sunday best, just a pair of chinos and a shirt I bought at Uniqlo). Hella comfy, as the chinos were 100% Cotton, as was the shirt, with a silk tie I bought for 987Y. Unfortunately, I didn't find any shoes in my size for cheap, so I had to make do with cleaning my etnies, which stand out like a sore thumb being bright white.

I received a message from Yoshi saying that he had a fever, so wouldn't be able to make the meeting, so he asked me to call another brother called Kiyoshi. I phoned him before we got the subway, but soon we were on our way to Asagaya, a suburb west of Shinjuku and Nakano. After letting Mum get changed in the station toilets (It was too cold for her to wear a skirt), we soon met Kiyoshi and another couple of brothers, who then guided us through a few left and right hand turns before we came across the little kingdom hall. If Nundah hall is small, this place was positively miniscule, as there were about 60 of us in attendants with only 1 or 2 seats free. We soon found out, it was Kiyoshi giving the talk, so we were glad we hadn't held him up by being late. I was so glad to be back at a meeting, but the different thing was, for an English congregation, there was probably only 4 or 5 native speakers. There were a couple of brothers that had gone to the French group before it was disbanded, but for the most part, they were Japanese who were just trying there best. Kiyoshi wasn't a bad speaker and actually used an illustration that I might flog should the situation arise. There was an English brother conducting the Watchtower study, with a Kiwi (who had a slight american accent) doing the reading. Not much else to report really, but it's great to know that anywhere you go in the world you can immediately have 60 new friends.

Kiyoshi guided us back to the station before returning to the hall, but by now it was nearly 3pm, so we were getting a little hungry. Not wanting to repeat the Mos Burger problem of the day before, we decided to stop anywhere we could find. (Silly thing is, after having so much difficulty trying to track down a MOS Burger, we saw 2 or 3 the next day). There was a soba place at Yotsuya station where we were changing trains, but although there was a steaming pot and it was supposed to be open, the door was locked, so we got on a subway train headed for Ginza.


Dean and I had been to Ginza about 3 years ago (when we sat in the GTR), but hadn't really explored the area. Ginza literally means Silver Mint, and was where the reserve bank and coins used to be located. It's still a pretty flashy area, as a lot of your high end European fashion companies have their flagship stores here, as well as a few upmarket department stores. We wanted to find somewhere cheap to eat though, so after finding an ATM, we decided on a Korean place in the basement of Marui City (OIOI). The food was awesome, Dean, Conrad and I got a Kimchi meat thing set which while Dean said it wasn't the very best he's had was still fairly close. The price was good too, though the service was a little lacking. The head waitress/maitre'd wouldn't shut up, so Whitney couldn't even ask about the seperate booth that wasn't being used or reserved, so we had to split up. Another thing about Japan is that they don't tend to cater for groups of more than 4 people. Most places will happily join tables together for you to seat 5 or 6, but on average most have only 2 or maybe 4 seat tables.


The whole reason why we had gone to Ginza was to check out the shopping, but with prices in general being higher than everywhere else, we didn't really care to hang around. So after catching the Maranouchi subway line to Tokyo station, we walked through some of the shops there, before heading through Yaesu to Liquors Hasegawa. After trying quite a few different things, Dean, Mum and I eventually bought a couple of bottles towards our duty-free quota. It may seem silly to buy it here, where we still had to pay 5% tax, but even then it was still cheaper than Duty Free at Narita, and probably about half of what Duty free in Australia would have cost.

We made it back to the hotel in one piece, but we were all running low on funds. I had got some money out, but had kept enough to get on the train the next day and buy some food, but not much else. So after all the walking and whatnot, we decided to head to Yoshinoya again (well, this was Mum and Whitney's first time, and the one we had gone to was over 80km away). After having some difficulty with the door (I didn't realise I had to press this tape strip. I was tired OK) we got in. We had only had lupper (lunch-supper) about 3 hours before , so weren't absolutely hungry, but knew we needed to eat anyway. I got a small bowl this time (payed only 380Y for a set) but Mum and Whitney had got normal size bowls, not knowing that there's more than enough in them to fill a ravenous sumo. Doesn't matter anyway, as with it only costing pocket change, you don't mind leaving some if you don't feel like eating.

Back via the 7-11 and Lawson's (Dean and I went to 7-11, but the others didn't follow) for a couple of chu-hi cans and an ice cream (cornetto type thing or 128Y) we retired to our room. As we had nowhere early to be the next day, we put on some music, had some drinks, strawberries, chocolate and stuff in our room. We got a couple of bangs on the wall (probably some drunken businessman trying to sleep before work the next day) before we got too tired and turned in about 10.30. We still had to pack, but after a busy day, we needed sleep.