Monday, April 1, 2024
It has been a long day…well, two. We are back at home now and the cat appears happy to see us but we are sad our holiday is over. We have really enjoyed our trip to Japan and I was so happy to see that Mel took to it so well as it is a country I have always loved and want to return to as many times as I can.
Our travel began with an early alarm call at 7:30 am to allow us to get to Kyoto Station for our 9:33 train. It was another glorious, if cool, sunny day in Kyoto as we made our way one last time to Shijo station, stopping here and there to take pictures. We arrived at Kyoto Station just before 8:30 which allowed Mel to get some coffee from Starbucks (450 yen plus tax, so 480 yen) while I minded the luggage on the side. It was quite busy in the station. With coffee in hand we visited the “Grand Kiosk” shop and browsed through their bento box selection, eventually settling on two “Hiro’s Greedy Bento” boxes (1,380 yen each) before heading up to the platform to wait for our train. As always, we found our spot on the narrow platform where our reserved seats carriage would stop.
I left Mel with the luggage to wander through a small, narrow, shop on the platform “Delica Station” selling a surprisingly large variety of bento boxes and food items. I ended up simply picking up a packet of wasabi peanuts (183 yen) for myself (Mel will not touch them).
Unsurprisingly, our train was on time to take us on the second leg of our journey home. On the way from Kyoto to Tokyo Narita airport we needed to first stop at Shinagawa station in Tokyo where we would catch the Narita Express train to the airport. There were a few stops at the main stations along the route and it was quite clear all the way until about 45 minutes from Tokyo so we missed seeing Mount Fuji yet again as the clouds started coming over. I spent most of the time looking out the window and taking in the ever changing landscape, the houses, the mountains, the roads, the rivers, the factories, the occasional building looking like it dropped out of a Science Fiction film, the fields, the forests…Everything so perfect looking.
We enjoyed our bentos on the train. It was quite nice - Divided into three sections, we had shredded, seasoned beef over rice (“gyudon”), then a beef ball with gravy (!), and several pieces of fried chicken and meat. Perhaps a bit meat heavy but it hit the spot.
Arriving at Shinagawa just after noon we had 20 minutes until the train to the airport left so it was just enough time to find our platform and where we needed to be for our reserved seats.
The modern Narita Express, of course, arrived exactly on time and we were on our final train journey in Japan to the airport passing by, again, the Tokyo Skytree as we left Tokyo behind and passed through the countryside before arriving at Narita.
Due to an unfortunate experience with a previous departure from Tokyo I had intentionally timed our trains to arrive quite a bit early in case we were unexpectedly delayed so we were about an hour early for our flight. We took the time to wander around the various shops. We found an “Akihabara” shop selling Japanese manga/anime souvenirs - books, models, t-shirts, mugs, posters, etc - So we had a look here for gifts for people back home though, to be honest, I barely recognized half of the shows they were selling merchandise for. There are plenty of places to eat here as well with some having large glass window display windows at the front with an array of plastic versions of their food on show to entice you in.
After checking in our two small trolley bags (they were a good idea as I can’t imagine lugging around anything larger with all the trains we have used) we passed through security uneventfully. We found a seat at our gate but, leaving Mel to watch the bags, I continued to explore, finding a large book store that sold not only Japanese books and magazines (many geared to people learning the language) but also English material as well. I was tempted to pick up a ramen kit being sold in a ramen restaurant but we have a bunch of these already in our luggage and our rucksacks are also quite full so I gave it a miss.
In a bit of a surreal moment we saw a lady going by in a robotic wheelchair, sitting calmly as though there was nothing unusual about it as she was taken to her gate. Later the chair returned empty, beeping as it passed where we sat. I only hope she was left at the gate…I suppose she could have been left anywhere?
Our return flight took us once again through Abu Dhabi (terminal A), arriving just after midnight where we spent a bit of time looking at souvenirs again but eventually, tired, simply went to our gate to wait for our departure back to Manchester at 2:35. The food was quite good on the first flight but the second was not so good, I think we may have even been on the same planes as we had been on when we had first arrived in Japan. We did manage to get some rather uncomfortable sleep on the flights but we were not in great shape when we arrived in a rather wet and dreary Manchester airport just after 7:00 am.
A short wait for our luggage and we left the terminal to catch the bus to the car park where our car was ready for us. We headed straight out onto the motorway and less than an hour later we were home to a very happy cat.
