Well here we go again! Because the first flight of the trip was an early one we, once again, decided to spend the night at the airport, to lessen the pain in the morning. However, instead of the Rydges, we were booked in to the Mantra Sydney Airport which is on the Domestic side of Sydney Airport. Our first flight ( of 13 for this trip!) was 6.30am from Sydney to Brisbane. Why Brisbane? Well, our “mid trip” stopover this year is once again Tokyo, however we needed to get to Narita airport for our ongoing trip to Milan – and there are no direct Qantas flights from Sydney to Narita! Thus the need to go via Brisbane.
Simon had, very kindly, offered to drive us to the hotel and we arrived there at around 4pm. I chose the Mantra as we could walk from there to the domestic terminal, and it’s a bonus that it’s an Accor property as Neil is Accor Gold class. Of course the holiday began with the usual celebratory glass of bubbly in the hotel bar and dinner in the restaurant.
I set my alarm for, gulp, 3.50am and we went to bed early. I’d had a notice on my Qantas app to allow extra time for security, I assume beacuse we are at the beginning of the NSW school holidays. We slept OK despite the air-con and traffic noise ( our room faced onto General Holmes Drive ) and I was actually awake shortly before the alarm went off. We were checked out and walking to the terminal by 4.20 am. There were plenty of people there but not huge crowds and the only delay was waiting for the bag drop machines to be turned on!
Next stop was the Qantas Club as Neil has recently become a member. A coffee each and some light breakfast to get us started as we watched the sky slowly grow light.
The flight to Brisbane left on time, one advantage of being on the second flight of the day! Everything went smoothly until an annoucement came over the PA asking if there were any doctors or medical people on board! The flight attendants were then scurrying up and down the aisle with gloves on and concerned expressions to some poor person up the back and were too busy to collect the rubbish left over from our snack meal. We were a little concerned with the thought that they might turn around and go back but we’d misjudged how far we’d come, they shortly afterwards announced the descent into Brisbane.
We used the reasonably efficient bus transfers from the Brisbane domestic to international terminal and made our way to the Qantas lounge for “second breakfast” . I like their lounge better than the Sydney one as we had a view over the terminal as well as the runway and could people watch the crowds below. One disadvantage at the moment is that , due to construction work, access to the Brisbane lounge is before security, which means you need to allow extra time to get through security before going to your gate. The lounge staff are very well organised though and making the flight calls with an extra 30 minutes of buffer time. As it turned out it wasn’t really necessary, the security lines at Brisbane were much quicker than Sydney!
The flight left a little late, some issue with their air con and electrical system which needed to be sorted before we could leave. But only 30 minutes behind time we were on our way to Tokyo. I had booked us in their Economy Plus seats that give you a little more leg room, but it’s still pretty tight. At least on these planes we had the luxury of two seats together at the window, without a stranger sharing the row. We settled in to watch a selection of movies, I started with “Project Hail Mary” which my boys had told me I really should see, and followed up with two Harry Potter movies.
I’m a little on the fence about long daytime flights. In one way it’s great that your sleep is not disturbed, but spending 9 hours in flight wide awake does make for a loooong day. The pilot had initially hoped to have a quick flight but we ended up having to skirt some bad weather and in his words “went a long way out of our way to avoid it”. We landed at around 7pm and then girded our loins for making our way through immigration and customs. Our previous experiences at Haneda airport had been slow and tedious with very long lines, so it was a relief to find that things were much quicker this time around. Not perfect mind you, we used the kiosks that scan your fingerprints and take your photo, but for some reason it didn’t like either of mine and we ended up having to go through the process again at a manned desk.
I’d booked us into the Hotel Nikko Narita which services the airport with a shuttle bus. We found the right bus stop and were pleased that we only waited about 10 minutes for the bus. I was very pleased becaue my stomach was complaining after the long day and succession of odd meal times, so I was very glad to finally get to the hotel. Quite impressed with the room, it’s much larger than our previous Japanese airport stays at Haneda airport and is half the price! The breakfast buffet was abundant, catering to all nationalities, they even had french fries for breakfast!
We only had one room hitch – it has one of those high tech Japanese toilets, with light and panels of buttons. I was so befuddled by the time we arrived that I couldn’t work out how to flush it! Luckily a couple of photos and a search on Google came up with the very simple solution.
We slept OK and woke to rainy skies. Our flight to Helsinki and Milan doesn’t leave til 11pm tonight so I’d decided to book the extra night so we can relax here until it’s time to head back to the airport at 8pm. My plan was for us to use the free hotel shuttle to go into Narita town and visit a huge temple and garden there. However, as I type this at 1pm the weather is still lightly drizzly and chilly so we have decided to just stay in and enjoy the hotel facilites, rest up for the next busy part of the trip. We have a good view of the runway from our room and have done a bit of plane-spotting… and blogging!
The hotel’s little coffee lounge served us a nice light lunch and some good coffee. We watched the JAL pilots come and go – this hotel is a designated JAL hotel and caters to their cabin crew. We also visited the Lawson’s Convenience store and were impressed at the range of items on sale , these Japanese convenience stores are amazing, even little hotel outlets!
After lunch we had a walk around the hotels lawns and gardens, some parts were definitely showing the effects of the recent typhoon, one part of the zen garden looked like it had suffered from a real collapse and flooding. The other half was still pretty. Outside the plane noise was loud and constant, made us greateful for the hotels impressive sound proofing in the rooms.
WE spent the rest of the aftername playing a game of Word (Scrabble) with each other on our phones and watching competitive Sumo wrestling on the TV. I now know everything I’ll ever need to know about Sumo wrestling!
Eventually we packed up and went downstairs to catch the shuttle bus back to the airport, a quicker trip this time. We waited a short time for checkin to open and then we headed for the Sakura lounge for some dinner, 8pm is late for us! We’ve enjoyed the curry and a drink and will be kicked out of the lounge at 10pm. Our flight doesn’t board til 10.35 so we’ll be able to finally get some steps up before we’re on our way to Helsinki and Milan.
Today has been a very quiet and relaxing day and I really think it’s turned out great! We both had hectic days the day before we left home and with the very early starts it’s been nice to have a breather and a catchup before we start the trip “proper”. Next post will be from Milan!