1/10 & 2/10 What 2nd of Oct?

Monday 1^st Hawaii – Tokyo – Hong Kong

Our shuttle arrived (early) and we soon filled up with other passengers and took the expressway out to the airport. We checked in for both flights, our luggage is booked to go straight through to HK and they have given us seats together, which were unavailable to us last night on the internet. We are waitlisted for window seats.

We went through the stringent US security scanning, which includes full body Xrays, and plonked ourselves upstairs with a view out over the runways and the beehive of activity around the planes while they are being serviced. The platforms which raise the cargo containers up to the hold are fascinating – they twirl the big containers round until they line up properly for where they have to fit inside. Our All Nippon Airlines jet has just arrived and an army of cleaners have all swiped themselves onboard.

It is extremely busy – there are at least 4 parallel runways with small private planes, commercial jets and huge Jumbos. They just put up 2 jet fighters on the far side from the base next to Pearl Harbour. Hmm now the wind must have shifted because everything is going left to right. Another pair of (unmarked) fighters just taxied past right in front of us and then turned and streaked across the runway before putting their noses up and climbing swiftly through the clouds.

And suddenly it is Tuesday. We have just crossed the International Date Line (first time ever for both of us) and gained another 5 hours so we are only 1 hour ahead of Perth. But the downside of all these hours we have been gaining is that we have now lost a day! It went from Monday to Tuesday.

We are enjoying free wifi at Narita airport in Tokyo. Alas we have to fly straight through – quite apart from the extreme cost of staying here, if we were to step outside the airport and then come back in again and board the same plane we will be taking, it would push our fares up by about $300 each. The fare is greatly discounted and I think there are no airport fees for Tokyo if your luggage goes straight through and you don’t clear customs twice.

We are not quite sure what service is offered by the image 3rd from the right.

 

We will arrive in Hong Kong tonight at about 11pm but it will seem like 5am to us. Luckily we can sleep late tomorrow and we are in a very good hotel this time (we hope . . it’s certainly expensive). We got the chance to weigh everything this morning and we total 52 kilos. From here on we have paid for more luggage and we will have over 60 by the time we leave Singapore. The first thing we need to buy is a new backpack because J’s fell apart pretty much as soon as we landed in Europe.

All Nippon is a good airline although Air Canada remains our favourite. The only problem is that the seats seem to be configured for Japanese, with short leg room. If I slid one more sheet of paper in the magazine rack I wouldn’t get me knees in.