Sunday night I flew from Tokyo’s Narita airport to Brisbane Australia and connected to Auckland New Zealand.
Not the world's best photo, but it is sunset over Narita airport in Tokyo. It is kind of a fitting way to end my visit to Japan
Sianora
This post is bereft of photos, so my apologies. More in the next post!
The Narita-Brisbane flight was about 9 hours and the one I was concerned about from a comfort perspective. It was a 767-300 and had 65 rows of seats (I need to check what the average AA or BA 767-300 has) It was tight and mostly full but not hugely uncomfortable other than it was very warm, so I arrived in Brisbane as a somewhat greasy blob at 7.00 in the morning…Nice.
Anyway all was on time and we arrived in Auckland a few minutes late. I had heard that both the Aussies and Kiwis are fanatical about biohazards and there are serious penalties for bringing in fruit or meat or about any food related items. The baggage reclaim had an officer walking around with a beagle trained to sniff out those items. My bag passed muster with merely a distained sniff from the beagle, but she was all over the bag belonging to the lady next to me. Turned out she had no fruit, but had carried some bananas in the bag in the last 24 hours or so!! Smart beagle.
All resolved I headed in to town and my luxurious accommodation!
It is a backpacker hostel and pretty much what I expected and what I will be living in, in various places for the next few weeks. It is basic accommodation. They have dorm rooms (4 or 6 to a room) singles and doubles. I have elected single rooms as a balance between some privacy and cost, and so I do not expose others to my propensity for snoring particularly after a couple of foaming golden beverages that I have been known to consume! My room has bunk beds and a small sink and there are showers and a toilet just down the hallway. It is adequate, but not luxury by most measures. There is a kitchen and refrigerator so you can buy and cook food if you so desire. I my at some point but have not yet.
I will be traveling by bus and train for the next three weeks or so and part of that is to meet more people and hopefully find out more about New Zealand and the way of life, and also to meet other people and exchange views. This is difficult if you are in a car on your own. The other reason is, that if you are driving you are (or at least should be) paying attention to the road, and would potentially miss the scenery. I have seen some of my friend Jen’s photos from the last week (more about her adventures in the next post) and I am NOT going to miss any of that. It looks spectacular. I got a NZ SIM card for my phone so now have a prepaid NZ phone number. It cost NZ$2 and I had to get a $20 top up, but that gives me text and phone capability at good rates. Unlike India I did not have to even produce ID or anything other than the money!. I did not even try in Japan!!
