Virgin Australia to Cairns
Right now I am sitting in the Melbourne Virgin Australia lounge having some fruit toast as there is no food on my flights today. 10 hours of no food and nothing but water on offer.
There is also no lounge in Cairns, which is my stopover spot for an hour or so after a 4 hour flight from Melbourne. So no food today, just fruit toast and then sippy cups of sneezed on water.
Getting to the airport was already a source of adventure. I take the Skybus because I am a notorious tight ass and I do not like getting in some dudes car who downloaded an app and 10 minutes later became a qualified professional driver. Having said that, the Skybus still has no seat belts, despite travelling along the freeway at 100kmph. I digress (already).
The bus leaves about once every 15 minutes, it pulled up just as I got there and a guy got on ahead of me, there were not many people around. So we might have to wait a few minutes for a few more people and for the proper departure time. Anyway this normal looking guy starts ranting about how he is late and why the hell is the bus not leaving etc. Eventually he goes downstairs and starts abusing the driver and ticket checker outside and then gets back on the bus and demands it leave immediately. They tell him he is now not going to travel on the bus and he should get off. So he refuses of course. I stuck my head down the stairs to see what is going on and he was standing in the door not letting anyone else on while continuing to argue, 'if I cant go on the bus no one can'. Great.
Anyway after about 5 minutes the transit cops came and the guy sprinted off when he saw them. I watched him running away out of the front of the upper deck bus window and he was looking over his shoulder running and veered into the wall. Good times.
Now for some more fruit toast, not sure if I will have time to type more nonsense from Cairns or even when I arrive in Tokyo tonight.
The traditional departure photo, taken the evening before departure. What is this? It is the view of the new feature from my apartment window. Scaffolding. A few years ago they added 3 more levels to my building, and wisely constructed them out of highly flammable petrol soaked plastic. So now they have to rip that down and rebuild it. I predict the scaffolding will be there for a year. I get to watch hi vis guys swearing and smoking all day.
This is just a space filler photo really. The Virgin Lounge in Melbourne. At least you can get a quiet seat in here, unlike the Sydney one in which you generally have to fight 10 guys just to get a cup of warm tap water. It is a good thing I can sit far away from others as the roof structure in here really helps amplify the sounds of everyone's horrific expulsions of holiday ruining pathogens.
And here are some jets (photographed through a blurry window), including mine. I will go all the way to Japan on a tiny 737 Max death plane supplied by the fine folks at Boeing who no longer tighten bolts.
Cairns airport and onboard VA77
In a rare thing, right now I am onboard Virgin flight VA77 bound for Tokyo Haneda and I have internet. So I can type some more of this nonsense now.
For about an hour it seemed like I may not be getting to this point at all today, as the plane did not leave Melbourne for an hour beyond scheduled departure time as we sat onboard while an engineer seemingly worked on the captains seat. This may sound frivolous, but recently an airliner nearly crashed when the pilot's seat unexpectedly slid forward and his fat stomach smashed into the controls pitching the plane into a steep dive.
The engineer left and we pushed back seconds later, and tore out to the runway in Melbourne faster than any flight I have ever been on, with no stopping at the runway threshold or anything, just a 90 degree drift turn onto the piano keys before we then seemed to climb all the way to cruising altitude at near full power, at which point they announced that we will be making the connection in Cairns to Tokyo. It was never really in doubt as half the people on the flight to Cairns are continuing to Tokyo.
The flight was quite full and as we were about an hour out a guy nearby started rolling smokes and putting them in his mouth, by the time we landed he had 3 in his mouth ready to run off the plane.
As for Cairns airport, the domestic side is busy, the international side less busy than ever, with just one cafe. I barely had time to drink a litre of water, shotgun a coffee and eat half a $12 sandwich and it was time to board.
Which brings me to here, typing this, on a plane that is largely full of Japanese people. I have a row to myself again just like the last time I took this flight. Soon we will fly over a hurricane. These are short sentences. No one near me is sick. The photos below are terrible, but they fill a spot on a page.
Here is the little 737 max 8 that will take me to Japan. Again this is shot through blurry tinted glass. You can tell it is one of the new faulty Boeing's by the wingtips that are overly complicated and prone to failure.
This is basically, all of the international terminal at Cairns airport. The cafe must hate it when the connecting flight is delayed as mine was, there was basically no time for people to get any food. I was almost first off and barely had time to inhale half a sandwich and burn myself on a terrible expensive coffee.
LOOK AT MY COOL MASK! I am the only person wearing one, including all the Japanese people. I guess they are going home and do not care as much, perhaps they wore one on the way here. Now to sit back and wait for the tiny drip feeds of water they offer on this 7.5 hour flight. They bring the communal bottle around maybe 3x if you are lucky.
Arriving at Tokyo Haneda
On my trip to Korea earlier this year you may recall that I travelled all day and arrived at my hotel near midnight only to find that they had decided to give my booking to someone else, despite me telling them I would be there at midnight and the hotel replying with a confirmation message stating that would be no problem and taking my money... tonight arriving in Tokyo I had no such issue, I checked in at a machine and spoke to no one.
The flight from Cairns to Tokyo Haneda was good, as mentioned above I had internet basically the whole way. I also had a whole row of seats. I also drank all the water they offered me but it was not enough.
Sadly Japan has still mastered convenience with extra steps at the airport. The Haneda experience was a bit better than last year, but I still spent over an hour in the immigration queue, the QR code made no difference at all, it is all the same huge line. Then in the baggage collection area the QR code is actually worse, as you have to go to yet another kiosk and take yet another photo, where as people with paper do not seem to have to do that.
My hotel is in Shimbashi, I have been here a few times before as it is right by Tokyo station, but I have not stayed in a hotel here before. Since it was not quite as late as I expected I found time for a 30 minute wander before returning to my tiny hotel to type this.
Tomorrow is probably a short hiking day, there is actually rain forecast! I am not used to rainy days on my holidays the last few years.
OK, bed time finally.
Hotel room photo lovers rejoice, for your time is now. This room is small and dated and cheap. But the bed is big.
The toilet. Also dated.
OMG it is me. Proof I was here. This could also double as a hostage photo.
And then as mentioned, time for a wander. A nearby street. Lots of people around, but then it is Saturday night. Some girls had actual prices stuck to themselves, and they were not all the same price. I wonder how it feels to be the discounted one standing next to the premium product?
And for my last photo of a long day with the rare 3 updates, here is a restaurant. With more school girl quasi sex workers standing out the front selling octopus.