Off adventuring again. A few days hanging out in Hakon with Yale before Mr K comes over and we get stuck into some work and some serious onsen hopping. Having this trip booked has been MAJOR motivation to stick to the rehab program on my knee and make sure I am ambulant enough for this.
Hmmm Qantas slacking off on the menu again. Lane Lois Blanc de Blanc is the sparkling wine on offer atm, and I made the mistake of noting the step down from the Grant Burge to Yale, who relayed it to his wine-snob friend, Gamer. Gamer who immediately started hanging shit on me for preferring Grant Burge! Yes, I do! To this swill… but only because it isn’t the Vintage Dom Perginon I’ve become accustomed to on Emirates flights this year! Sheeesh. When I asked when we were coming over to raid Gamer’s wine racks, I noticed he backed down pretty quick!
Made it into the Qantas First Class Lounge in Sydney and thankfully, there was some superior French offerings here… a bit of Pommeray and Tattinger. Phew that was close!
I only had some nuts with my wine on the plane, so had some salt and pepper calamari and tried a mushroom dish. Tasty, and they serve you so quickly here, which is nice.
2A.. it’s my favourite in the A330. Closer to the window than the aisle. Yes, even in business class there are ‘better seats’ on the ‘right side of the plane’.
More champagne, yes please.
Pyjamas for the people…
The Japanese set meals on the flights to and from Japan last year were really nice… this one was a little on the ordinary side. I was wondering if maybe it’s because it was prepped in Australia rather than Japan. I guess we will get a chance to compare with the meal on the way home.
Still very pretty presentation though – and there’s saké so we aren’t writing complaint letters just yet!
Arrived safely in Japan! Oh no… it’s stupid early in the morning and we can’t pick up our hire care for hours yet. But, guess who skipped breakfast so we could hunt down some breakfast sushi! This chick. Not my first 0600 arrival in Haneda! 🙂
Oh dear god – how much trouble are we going to get into!
Okay, it’s official. There are ZERO ‘on-airport’ rental cars at Haneda airport. In fact, I’m not sure the companies operating from here understand the concept, because they will tell you they are ‘on-airport’ but you’ll find they mean, ‘yeah, there’s a desk cut you’re going to need to take a shuttle to collect a vehicle’, which will e somewhere in a nearby industrial neighbourhood. Oh well, guess that means we can stop hunting for ‘on-airport’ rentals in future. Hired this cute little Nissan Kicks… nice little car actually.
The drive to Yugawara onsen, which was down the coast past Yokohama… overcast and moody.
First things first though… it’s not a road trip in Japan until your first visit to the konbini, and because it was cool and overcast (compared to Brisbane at least) that means, sweet caramel tea and curry bread! 😀 Curry bread quota: no more than one per week in country. That’s a hard rule!
“Don’t judge crime!”… but why not?
We didn’t have much of a wander around before making our way to our ryokan. We were tired, and both hoping to check in a little early… can’t wait to slip into the onsen with a saké!