Kaoru’s Birthday Trip!
The alarm went off at 5.00. A couple of snoozes and we got up, finished a couple of things, and called our “Ola” to take us to the airport. Uber is starting to give me the shits so time to try a new service. Not a good start as the first driver didn’t seem to come and get us (went over the West Gate bridge instead of turning off) but the second one got us there OK.
We checked in (I got a business class upgrade so it was pretty quick), and then after a quick look at the duty free shops, it was in to the lounge. We went to the Amex lounge first as Kaoru’s Amex has 2 passes, and we wanted to see what it was like. We didn’t want to use her pass to get in though, so we asked if we could just have a quick look around, as it’s new. It was quite small, but nice. Then we went in to the Qantas lounge, where I had a shower, and we finally ate breakfast.
We passed the time until boarding the plane for the long flight to Tokyo. I told the steward that my wife was in Economy so he went back and gave her some special treatment. And I went back to say Hello a few times. About 2 hours out of Tokyo the chief steward asked where she was sitting. Next thing I knew, I saw her sneak in (with him) to the back row of Business Class! So I moved my seat (from 4 window to 7 centre) so I could sit next to her. He then brought her a glass of champagne!
We enjoyed the rest of the flight and eventually landed. Immigration was the most amazing I have ever seen. No queue at all, and I thought we were going to be waiting for ages for our bags to come off – but no, they came almost straight away too! Once through immigration Kaoru had a look at the bus times, and there was a 7.05 one – we were expecting to have to catch a 7.30 one, so that sounded good, but we only had about 15 minutes. I ran downstairs to get my JR Pass while Kaoru bought our tickets. There was a long line for the JR exchange and I had pretty much given up on the idea of getting the early bus. But once I had my pass I ran upstairs, looked around for Kaoru, heard her call me and I just ran in the direction of her voice. We raced outside, to the bus rank, and within 20 seconds the bus arrived. I didn’t have time to buy my customary beer for the trip, but we were on our way.
At Futako Tamagawa we caught a taxi to Mio’s – easy to do (I’ve done it on my own before!), where she and Yoichi were. We ate and I had a much-awaited Suntory Premium Malt, and then Yoichi had to go and pick Arisa up from school (this is about 10.30pm local time, mind you). We chatted for a bit, but I was pretty tired (I hadn’t slept well the previous night) so I went to bed about 11.30.