On Friday, I landed in Japan (from the UK), met two friends, and travelled to Hakone to a hotel near Lake Ashi (芦ノ湖). Saturday (yesterday), we all took part in the Hakone running festival. I chose the half marathon, which was a hilly out-and-back course. I knew I would be sub-par from the travel, so my plan was to take it steady, and I achieved that.
My 24 hour journey (a 13 hour flight to Singapore, a 2 hour layover, a 7 hour flight to Tokyo, and then 2 hours of immigration and travel into Tokyo) starts with breakfast in the Singapore Airlines lounge, a benefit of being a Singapore Airlines regular flyer. Breakfast included a bacon roll, probably my last taste of ‘proper’ bacon until the middle of August – for the next six weeks, when bacon is on offer, it will be in the US style, thin strips without the meat part. In so many ways Singapore are my favourite airline, so I hope everything lives up to my expectations. The bad news is that the plane sounds like it is going to be very full. I have aisle seats on both legs (seat 59D on both legs – I often try to choose the same seat number, but for no real reason, just seems right), but it sounds like I won’t have the luxury of an empty seat next to me.
I am on my way to Tokyo to spend a month studying Japanese. I have an apartment booked for one month and I meet my tutor on Thursday. How will it go? Well, my optimism is high, but over the last 57 years I have not shown any aptitude for languages, so my optimism has to be tempered with some realism/concern. Tonight I am stopping at the Yotel at Heathrow, as I am flying Sunday morning, and getting from Nottingham to Heathrow on a Sunday morning is quite a problem. The Yotel is probably quite a nice foretaste of Japan as it is a capsule hotel, something we often associate with Japan. My room is about 2 metres by three metres and has a bed, a desk, an area to get changed, a toilet, shower, and sink. The internet is free as are coffee and tea. The bed is interesting, the good news is that it is comfortable, but the interesting thing is that my bed is over the bed in next cabin (in the picture you can see I step up to my bed, so the bed in the next Cabin will effectively be underneath me. As well as meeting my needs really well, the Yotel is great value (by UK standards), tonight is costing me £71.
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