Friday 24th October – departure<\/p>\n
After weeks, nay, months of preparing, today is the big day. Yours truly is on his way to Japan. Konnichiwa, birches!<\/p>\n
As I’m typing this, I’m on board of flight 270, en route to Hong Kong, an 11h trip. There I will take my connecting flight to \u014csaka, another 4 hours. Side note: I’m glad I have my phone charger with me and that there’s a socket available to keep my phone charged. Very handy!
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Departure was around 13:15h at Schiphol airport, arrival in Hong Kong is scheduled around 7:20h, which is around 0:20h in the Netherlands. I will try and get some sleep before landing. My connecting flight is scheduled to depart at 8:55h, which is 1:55h in the Netherlands. That flight is scheduled to arrive in \u014csaka around 12:45h, which is 4:45h in the Netherlands. Huzzah for jetlags!<\/p>\n
So far everything is looking well. But since I don’t fly very often, up until the plane took off, I was always wondering what I had forgotten to do\/arrange\/bring\/etc. That in turn resulted in a continuous slight unease. Oh well, it can’t be helped anymore. I’m underway!<\/p>\n
By extension, flying is a particularly exciting thing for me. Those moments that the plane starts taxiing or taking off? What a thrill! After that, well, there’s a lot of bright light and noise. And no, I don’t mean ‘splosions!<\/p>\n
Fun fact: it was raining so badly at Schiphol airport that you couldn’t see for as much as a mile or so. I took great satisfaction in thinking “Booyah!” at the stupid rain clouds as I cut\u00a0right through them, so they could worship me from below. Hehe.<\/p>\n
After landing at \u014csaka, I will need to do a couple of things. Firstly, there should be a package waiting for me at the post office: a portable WiFi hotspot. I will get to that later. Secondly, I will need to exchange my vouchers for train tickets. These allow me to travel trough Japan via Japan Rail trains (note: there are many service providers, similar to in the Netherlands). Thirdly, I will need to arrange for transportation to K\u014dbe, where I will stay my first two nights. I heard from my kind host that a shuttle bus can take me to the right place.<\/p>\n
Now, about that portable WiFi hotspot. It’s a nifty device which contains a sim-card and has a cellular data connection. In turn it also provides a WiFi signal which a smartphone can connect to. This way I can access the Internet on my smartphone to find information and maps, whenever I need. To me, that’s way more preferable than using the data connection on my smartphone and paying \u20ac2,50 per MB of data.<\/p>\n
Thanks to my powerbank that I took with me, I should be able to use my phone, camera and WiFi hotspot without having to concern myself with how much charge there will be left in all of the above.<\/p>\n
Side note: the powerbank I brought along is a waterproof Powermonkey with solar charger. I think it has a 10Wh capacity, but just look that up.<\/p>\n
Anyways, about my trip. I will stay at various locations in Japan. I will stay in K\u014dbe, Hiroshima, Himeji, \u014csaka, Kyoto, Nagoya and T\u014dky\u014d. All stays are booked via Airbnb.com and are various in nature.<\/p>\n
My first stay will be with a Japanese couple who live in an apartment in the tallest building in K\u014dbe. There they have a spare room, which they offer on Airbnb.com.<\/p>\n
My second stay is in a small apartment in Hiroshima, which I will have to myself. Funny how I will need to get the key from a locker box myself.<\/p>\n
The third stay will be in a hotel in Himeji, as it turned out. I was simply looking for a place to stay and this hotel appeared to offer their rooms on Airbnb.com. OK, fair enough.<\/p>\n
Next up is a small but rather nice apartment in \u014csaka, which I will have to myself as well. Same deal as in Hiroshima (with the key, I mean).<\/p>\n
After that I’ll be going to an apartment in Ky\u014dto where I will have close contact with the proprietor, who lives upstairs. They offered to pick me up from the train station and were very helpful with suggestions for plans and such.<\/p>\n
“computer pause!”<\/p>\n
…..<\/p>\n
“computer resume!”<\/p>\n
The nice thing about this flight is that there’s an actual selection in meals. And as far as microwave meals go, this was pretty good. Nice! Add a little bread, a small desert and a drink and I’m good to go for another couple of hours. Nice dinner (current time in Hong Kong is 20:51h, presently).<\/p>\n
Anyway, after visiting Ky\u014dto, I will go to Nagoya and stay with a Spanish \/ Russian couple. It appears that I will be staying either with them or just in their apartment. I’m not yet sure, but will find out later.<\/p>\n
Finally I will be staying in T\u014dky\u014d with a couple who have a spare room in their house. From the pictures I saw, it looks absolutely wonderful!<\/p>\n
That’s it for now. More later. Sayonara!<\/p>\n
(Posted via Hong Kong open WiFi)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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