Are We There Yet 😬

Wednesday 18th / Thursday 19th October

After 28 hours of planes, trains and automobiles….. we finally reached our destination and here we are all set up and finally unpacked in lovely Kanazawa.

The day started well - then we got to Newcastle airport and it all went to shit from there!  The flight to Amsterdam was 70 minutes delayed, which meant two things:

1. We were cutting it really fine to get our connecting flight

2.  We wouldn’t get to go in the lounge and hit the freebies

Not sure which I was more upset about 😂

Eventually got on the Newcastle flight and as we boarded we both got messages from KLM to tell us our connecting flight was delayed by an hour ….. never been so happy to get a delay! So ultimately we made it to Schiphol with enough time to go and play in the lounge and have a little drink to calm the nerves and stress of potentially missing the flight!

This flight included a little stop off in Korea (Seoul) where a lot of people got off. We had to get off the plane and return to it - same plane by another gate …. This involved a 30 minute walk round the airport and we had about 45 minutes to get back on the plane.  We were originally going to be there for 2.5 hours and we did plan to hit the Lounge there, but due to the delay at Amsterdam, the pilot wanted to crack on and get us to Kansai quicker …. No complaints from here.

We made it easily back to the flight  but someone didn’t and missed the flight … she could still be wandering round Incheon airport looking for gate 258 for all we know.

Koreans also like their kawaii (cute)

This also made it a long flight (15 hours) but as always the flight was good, the food was excellent and the seats are oh so comfy …. Even managed to get a little shuteye in between movies.

Finally after what seems forever … we landed in Kansai at 16:40.  I did a clever thing and sorted our Immigration and Customs forms in advance on that amazing thing called t’internet which meant we blasted through immigration and then customs with ease …. Pat on the back for Nic.

Next - pick up WiFi and get JR Passes … Wi-Fi was nice and easy but the train passes involved waiting in a git big queue which went down quite quickly.

Our train was at 18:15 and it was now 18:06 so quick run to the platform …. Well a quick walk from me .. and before us was the train that has been on my bucket list for some time now…. the Hello Kitty Haruka.

 

She perked me up a bit as by this time, I am a knackered, hungry, thirsty hot sweaty mess desperate for a shower and brunch my teeth…. Scott is not much better!

So now it’s just a 3.5 hour trip to Kanazawa with a quick change at Shin-Osaka.  Managed to grab a quick sandwich and drink in Shin-Osaka station for the next train ….. didn’t manage a shower tho 😬.

Finally made it to Kanazawa at 21:50, grabbed a taxi and we were back in our two week home at 22:30.  The local Combini (convenience store) was open so we managed to get a few supplies for the night and next morning…. So at this point - we have missed Thursday … completely missed it.

So bed now - unpack tomorrow and start fresh on Friday.