Time to head off to Fukushima to address the core issues.
I have practiced solving Japans nuclear crisis by the almost as complex repair to my shower, which had also breached containment. The Japanese nuclear crisis was solved somewhat faster, right now the shower situation is still in progress, and just minutes before leaving for the airport I was able to find the key component to reparing the leak (correctly sized tiles).
Replacing 8 tiles in my shower and a single length of pipe is costing more than my entire trip to Japan and Taiwan! Including flights, accommodation, food etc.
Aside from that, the Adelaide Qantas club remains the same as it is every other week when I am here, plenty of cake, hardly anyone here. Lots of flights to Sydney are delayed, but mine seems to be going on time. Of course theres always the risk Qantas will cease all operations again like they did the week leading up to my trip to China.
Unfortunately, I have to sit here for 3/4 of an hour. Luckily 2 women arrived nearby in their power suits, and spend 30 minutes complaining that they couldnt get their laptops connected to the free wifi. This involved calls to all sorts of IT support people, and then bitching about how useless they are. It seems they desperately needed to copy and paste something they needed to download so that they could then print it and pass it off as their own work.
In the end they decided that one of the young Sydney guys 'has a thing for me so I will just go in early and get him to do it, leaning over his desk should do the trick'. Then they decided to complain about having to go to work at all, and that travelling the afternoon before the meeting to stay in the four seasons was a terrible burden, because their flight wont land until 7pm and they wont get paid overtime. They spent the rest of the time working on what color background a powerpoint presentation should have for maximum impact and reading the dot points out loud to each other.
First pictures of the partially rebuilt shower, will it be completed by the time I come home or will the wall be cut out again?
If you are important enough like I am, they give you one of these, so you can wave it about like a fool in the customs line and push to the front.
The flight to Sydney (which I take each week) was actually entertaining. It was dusk and the pilot advised us that an air ambulance had requested a priority landing.
So we circled around at low altitude skimming in and out of glowing red clouds above Sydney.
Unfortunately there was no line to speak of at customs, so my snob priority pass was useless, I didnt get to wave it at any poor people at all.
The international terminal is very quiet at night, with only one Qantas flight departing (mine) and 3 other flights to Hong Kong, Dubai and Beijing. I find this slightly odd, I always thought a lot of flights left at this time.
The first class lounge was also quite empty, a lot of single men travelling for work looking miserable, drinking as much expensive booze as they can without getting too drunk to be denied boarding. My dinner was great but I will let the photos describe it.
Coming up next, the 10 hour flight to Tokyo, followed by a 2 hour bus or train ride (I have not decided which yet), followed by many hours before I can check in to my hotel. A test of endurance and excess food consumption.
Rather than a full meal, I elected for the pulled brisket and fresh coleslaw toasted sandwhich, this was excellent.
Dessert was toffee pudding with butterscotch sauce, also excellent.
I presume this is my plane, painted in the Melbourne grand prix livery. Despite being a huge fan of F1, I think every year I am overseas when the Australian grand prix is on. Fail.