Thursday, November 20, 2008

So we come to the land of the vending machine...



Believe me, there are a lot of them.

My jaw nearly hit the floor when I saw my bottom-bid roster for this month. 7 days of reserve (should have had 12 due to my October leave, but I guess someone in scheduling really likes me!), Munich, Singapore Melbourne and Nagoya. Many swaps later it is unrecognisable, but the Nagoya was the one flight that shocked me. For the first time, and without telling any of the crew, it had been made a 2 day layover. And my first thought was TOKYO!

As much as I love Nagoya, I'd been there twice already, and it had gotten to a point where I had a routine sorted - Get to the hotel, go out for dinner with crew, go to sleep before the crew get legless drunk, wake up, go to Starbucks for coffee, head to Mitsukoshi to stare for hours at the kimono and yukata they have, go to food court for bento box, go to Uniqlo and Muji to stock up on basics and travel knick-knacks, back to the hotel at 3pm, sleep until wake-up. I planned extensively in Dubai what I wanted to do - even printing off a travel guide and city map, and train timetable for the Shinkansen.

The Shinkansen, or Bullet Train, is the fastest and most preferred way to travel between any major city on Honshu Island and Tokyo. It is also incredibly expensive - a one way trip was 10,070 Yen, equivalent to 400DH or $104 USD, however from Nagoya to Tokyo it was 2 hrs, back to Nagoya it was only 70 minutes depending on which Skinkansen you boarded.

Now I should probably mention at this point is that I didn't make it to Tokyo in the best condition. Aside from the jet lag, an hour or so after landing into Nagoya I felt a bit crook, bit of mild abdominal pain but nothing major. Went to the hotel, got myself some Teriyaki pork cutlet burger from Mos and had a quiet dinner, but shortly after that the mild pain ended up really sharp and I was in sweats. 'Slept' in the foetal position with a bin beside my bed just in case. But I knew no matter what, unless I was unconscious, I still wanted to go on that train. I know it was stupid, but looking back I don't regret it, I'm glad I made the trip.

So reached Tokyo Station, and realised the map I had printed was still in Nagoya, so spent 1.5 hrs walking around the place trying to buy a map and finding out where on earth I was. The map I did end up buying was awful, didn't show the city in detail, just the different wards and train lines which didn't help on ground that much at all. Eventually, putting my 2 years of Japanese lessons to good use, I managed to make my way to the imperial palace, which was well worth the stress.

You can even see the koi!

The Tōkagakudō (Peach Blossom Music Hall), which was incredibly striking with all it's coloured tiles on the outside.

A relaxing haven for locals amongst one of the most populated cities in the world

Suwa no chaya tea house. The weren't serving any when I was there :-(

After wandering around the Imperial Palace for a few hours, I decided to visit the largest fish market in the world - Tsuji Fish Market. I wanted to go and have some sushi (even though admittedly I didn't really like sushi) just for the experience. But alas not having a decent map on me took it's toll and I was wondering around Ginza for a few hours without any understanding whatsoever of where I was. Ginza is quite nice, plenty of high-end stores like Chanel, LV, Dior and whatnot, but you can find these in any other big cities, and they're not that much fun to visit anyway if you don't have the $$$. After the rain started trickling I got fed up with the walking and headed underground for the nearest Metro station to Harajuku.

Harajuku area is well known for it's young teeny-bopper J-pop crowd, dressed in cosplay, french maid and school girl outfits. I hardly saw any of this (prolly cause it was raining). What I did see was a lively shopping district. Great restaurants. Great design houses. And when I finally had a look at my watch and realised how little time I had left until the last Shinkansen, I saw this.

Would love to know what it means.

Labels: Layovers

Posted by Melissa at 1:39 pm

9 comments

• The biggest reason of all. It doesn't, and will not, go to Perth. At least not while I'm still working here. If I wasn't given the option of bidding or swapping for flights home, I would go mental here. Seriously.
• My upgrade to First from Business would likely have been delayed for an additional 6-9 months
• It was a 2 year contract. If I didn't like it I couldn't exactly go back to the other fleets so easily.
• Stress. There are always teething problems when new aircraft arrive, regardless of aircraft type. And 72 business passengers (or 14 first class passengers, had I actually gotten my upgrade) complaining that their In Flight Entertainment screen was broken, or their seats wouldn't recline, or not getting the food out quickly and hot enough because the one or all the ovens are faulty, is something that would keep me awake at night.
• Lack of variety. New York. New York. London. New York. I love NYC to bits, and London is alright, but sometimes you just want to go somewhere hot in January, or somewhere tropical like Mauritius, or be somewhere exotic like Tanzania. And according to Business Traveller Magazine, the first two turnarounds earmarked for the new fleet are Jeddah and Bombay. No thanks!
• Flying hours. I'm quite frugal with money, and am saving up quite a bit, hoping to buy a property either here in Dubai, Europe or Oz. The new fleet don't really get a lot of flying hours, around 80 hours at it's peak, with 52 being the norm at the moment. I try to get about 100hrs every month. My former flatmate Lauren has a whopping 20 days off in her roster this month, and even if I did get that many hours, the amount of money spent on plane tickets to chew up the large amount of time off quickly outweighs the amount earned.
• Whilst a lot of people rave about how much of an engineering marvel it is and whatnot, it's a bit hard to appreciate with almost 600 passengers to look after. And not only that but it's gone tech twice now. Like the DC's, , Lockheeds, and Boeings, it is just another aircraft, getting you from A to B.

Labels: Airline Stuff, Random Thoughts