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I arrived at Sydney airport just after 5pm… over 1.5 hours earlier than I needed to for check in. I wandered around, enjoyed some live jazz at a café in the terminal and waited for check in to open. I checked in at around 7pm, went through customs and then spent my time wandering, buying a little sustenance (in the form of Godiva chocolates) and reading an interesting article on my iPad. At the gate everything appeared normal. Then it appeared less so with a delay because the engineering checks needed to be done. And then a longer delay was announced – we would fly out at 10am as the curfew prevented the flight from going the evening. A lot of swearing and frustration ensued (not from me, I was surprisingly calm). Finally we were herded through immigration to collect out baggage and then through customs. Another queue followed to distribute cab charges or to shuttle us to hotels. I chose the hotel option as I live so far from the city. This may not have been the smartest idea, as we were ferried to a hotel in Kings Cross. As nice as the hotel was, it really was not soundproof.
So I stuck to my original plan of switching to UK time during transit. And technically this was transit. I tried to ring Qantas a few times, but kept being put on hold for too long. I also worked on my presentation for the first conference and checked out the huge program, deciding which sessions to go to and which to skip. After a shower, I decided I would have a late afternoon nap (if I were in Manchester it would’ve been anyway).
I slept for around 1.5 hours, got up, had breakfast and travelled in a bus to the airport. And then queued for check in. And queued for immigration. And queued for security. It was a pretty mediocre morning, but at least I had a window seat and only one other person in my three person row. I slept the first half of the flight (which was delayed) and then watched "The Adjustment Bureau", "No Strings Attached" and a few episodes of "The Big Bang Theory". The best bit of the flight was peeking out the window to see we were flying above an ocean of clouds, tinted in peaches and blues as the sun was setting over Japan. I looked out the window until we landed.
Narita is quite warm. An older airport with very helpful staff, I finally made it through immigration and customs to confirm a few details with Qantas. I also made two friends - Ben and Hamish and we travelled to the hotel together and had dinner there together. For a food snob the dinner was really quite shocking. My dreams of lovely Japanese food were dashed with that horrible "European" style food you get in bad hotels. The room, however, is clean and comfortable.
Let's see what tomorrow brings!
Sarah
p.s. a lot of needless detail above... purely because I'm really not doing much.
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rachel
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hi
you always manage to make friends everywhere don't you?