abilucas

I then headed to the airport terminal and found the Virgin Atlantic check-in desk, I noticed that the flight number had changed and stupid me just presumed that STA had printed the details wrong considering that this flight was also bound for London and due to leave at 11.30 am. After asking at the information desk, I realised the error of my ways and was directed to the North wing of terminal 1 (don’t mock me, at least I managed the right terminal!) Here I joined the extremely long queue ready to check into my flight (guess I wasn’t getting three seats to myself this time around then). I heard the guy in front of me complaining about the passport system or some other travelling technicality and realised that the British really love to complain (hey ... read more

I promised myself I wouldn’t write another long complaint about how much I hate flying but we’re now 45 minutes in (wow that went fast) and promises are made to be broken, right? After deciding that my nerves over flying mixed with my excitement over coming back to England were never going to let me get back to sleep, I got up at 5 am to finish packing, have breakfast and write a soppy thank you card for Jo (it’s ok, it was just the hormones making her cry). We said our goodbyes and I left at 7.20 to drag my suitcase to Akabane station (with a brief anticlimactic return to give my forgotten Suica back to Jo), it was surprisingly light, the only trouble I had was with the hill right outside the house. At ... read more

This is technically my second visit to Japan, I came here for three weeks before Hong Kong but decided not to start my blog as I didn’t want to be accused of copying the wonderful Ed Tan (of course his is better as he went to the Pokémon museum and I didn’t), but I have just found some scribbles in my diary from last time round…. I just got back from dinner with Nate, John and Tamakisan (I think this is the right name), we went to a traditional “izakaya” (pub) and sat bare foot on the floor eating what I can only describe as Japanese tapas consisting of Octopus balls (not to be confused with octopuses balls), chicken skewers (yakitori), tofu, edamame beans, eel wrapped in egg (I gave that one a miss) and what ... read more

I’ve had a really nice couple of days in Japan; yesterday we went to a park which had a water feature running down the side for the kids to play in. We spent the morning climbing and sliding over rocks and splashing around in the barely 10cm deep water. My favourite part was possibly seeing the children who were wearing goggles and swimming caps when it was pretty impossible to do anything other than waddle! Lunch consisted of the usual onigidi’s, today I had a spicy pork flavoured one which knocked salmon from the top spot of my list of all time favourite onigidis! After lunch, with the heat getting too much to handle and with a raging headache, I crawled into Kasima’s tent and to my surprise was woken up two hours later when the ... read more

I woke up this morning with really good intentions, have breakfast, go for a run and then bribe myself into starting revision with a giant dark choc chip Frappuccino- I got as far as breakfast! Instead of carrying on my day as planned, I headed to Harajuku; although I’ve been there twice before, I’d never before noticed the humour in Takeshita Street (great anagram), the first stop on this humorous street was Paris Child, an accessories shop not dissimilar to Claires’, here I satisfied my craving for more butterfly earrings however, my visit to the shop was definitely worth it considering that on the way out I bumped into a girl I recognised from the OSCA training day who had been in Kobe – small world! I then stumbled across the one hundred yen shop (less ... read more

Today, after a rather hilarious attempt to hoover the apartment, Nate and I left for the local swimming pool. The swimming pool was definitely an experience; after figuring out the strange voucher system, I got changed into my swimming costume and compulsory swimming hat (the only time I’ve ever worn one before was during a year seven school swimming gala) and then had my first ever journey in a glass elevator wearing only a swimming costume. Once I arrived at the swimming pool, I was greeted by a lifeguard (as usual there was lots of bowing) who spoke very quickly in Japanese. Seeing the confused expression on my face, he stopped talking and signalled that I wait to one side for my friend. When Nate arrived, the lifeguard was relieved to find that he spoke Japanese, ... read more

I have to be careful about what I say when it comes to flying; I flew to Spain on my own when I was seventeen and was sat next to a forty year old night club owner and made the slight slip of the tongue saying “I hate going up but I don’t mind going down” he found this absolutely hilarious and then was a bit of a perve for the rest of the trip to the point that on my flight home, one of the airhostesses (who I coincidently knew from ice skating) came and apologised to me for not moving me! I suppose what I meant to say was that take off scares the hell out of me and I don’t open my eyes until the seat belt signs go off, you know you’re ... read more

I’m not quite sure where my visit to Hong Kong ends and the trip to Tokyo begins, once you’ve gone through customs you’re in that ambiguous zone that I’ve never quite been bothered to try and understand, technically on Hong Kong territory but according to your passport you’ve left the country. I’m not sure where I’d stand if the baby who was so adamant on trying to eat my passport and boarding pass on the way to the gate had actually succeeded and I did for a split second contemplate flushing my passport down the toilet in an attempt not to have to go on the plane thankfully, my sensible side overcame my inner wimp. It occurred to me that I’ve never before travelled to the airport alone so it was slightly strange not to have ... read more

Thankfully Charles seemed in a pretty good mood this morning, if ever I'm faced with a heartbroken eight year old again, I'll remember just to tell them to get a good night's sleep and everything wil be better in the morning! I must say their was some blatent flirting between Eric and Candy during my morning lesson though- everytime I shouted "crabs" (it was a lesson on Sea Life bot STI's incase you were worried), they started pinching one another and giggling as Mr Jealous Boots Charles watched on. We did have a slight incident when one girl insisted another had stolen her rubber, considering the said rubber was no bigger than my thumbnail and was absolutely wrecked anyway, I don't quite understand the big deal but I suppose my eight year old self would have ... read more

The tale of Charles and Candy; today I had my first experience of a heartbroken eight year old. As we were all bored of our usual afternoon events, we decided to take a leaf out of Josh’s teams book and run a song contest, I decided that my class were going to perform “wouldn’t it be nice” by the Beachboys, half because I like the song and half because I thought they would just sound adorable singing it! Anyway, that’s just to put the whole situation in context, what happened next was pretty unexpected; I put them into boy girl partners to do a dance which, although they were slightly immature about it at first, they coped surprisingly well with. After having practiced our dance a few times, one of the boys asked if they could ... read more