Well, I've made it as far as Heathrow, and I'm currently sat in an internet café killing time before my 19:35 flight to Tokyo, whence I have two hours to catch a flight on to Beijing, arriving at 20:10 on Friday, 17 1/2 hours after leaving London.
The day started all too early at 09:30 British time, which was especially painful having only got to sleep at about 04:30. I hope I'll get some sleep on the flight. A shower, some final packing and some photocopying of documents later, I left the house at 11:25. My mum gave me a lift to Belfast City airport, where I caught
Flight BD87: 13:05 Belfast City to London Heathrow T1, arr 14:25
Operated by BMI (British Midland) using an Airbus A319; seat 8D
Pushback 1304, wheels-up 1310, wheels-down 1407, on stand 1415
A routine short hop across the Irish Sea: my 58th flight ever, and my 67th ever crossing of the Irish Sea (inclusive of ferries). BMI are familiar to me, mainly because my dad used to use them quite frequently for trips to London (maybe once a month or so). I last used them in 2004 for a day trip to Imperial College London for an open day, back when I was choosing undergraduate courses. Since then, the traditional full-service model has been replace by the now-standard buy-on-board system, which I didn't end up using mainly because I was too tired to want anything to eat.
We got away bang on time, and landed in Heathrow early with none of the usual ATC delays, on runway 9L. We got a good view of Terminal 5 on our right as we came into land; I hadn't realised the network of elevated roadways that allow seamless access to every level, and it looked quite impressive from 50 feet in the air. Unfortunately being early meant the gate wasn't quite ready for us, and even when it was we still had a 20-minute wait for our baggage.
Once my case arrived, I went down into the bowels under the terminals, and went for a seemingly interminable walk past the Piccadilly line station and the Heathrow Express station to get to Terminal 3, arriving there about 15:00. Unfortunately, the flight doesn't leave till 19:35, so the check-in desks didn't open until 16:30 or so. So I went and got some lunch.
It was after that that it finally started to hit me that I was going to a far-off distant land: I bought 1400 Chinese renminbi, and 18,000 Japanese yen. (That's about £150 of each.) After killing time in bookshops and on the phone, I went to check in.
Check-in was, itself, not the simple affair I'm used to. Because I'm spending a week in China and two weeks in Japan, I couldn't book London-Tokyo-Beijing on a single ticket, so the lady at the check-in desk at All Nippon Airways (Japan's second national carrier) had to input my connection data manually.
After a few minutes typing away at the computer, I came away with both boarding cards. That was a big relief; if I'd had to check in again in Tokyo (Narita) it would have been quite tight. But now that both I and my baggage are checked through to Beijing, all I have to do when I get to Tokyo is clear immigration and find the gate. In theory, anyway.
Now, however, I have a dilemma: what time to think of it as? It's 17:30 in London, 00:30 in Beijing and 01:30 in Tokyo. And I only have one watch. This is going to be confusing.
Anyway, I'll try and write some stuff on the two planes, which are:
NH202, 19:35 London Heathrow T3 to Tokyo Narita T1, arr 15:20 (Fri)
NH955, 17:20 Tokyo Narita T1 to Beijing, arr 20:10
I don't expect I'll get time to post on Friday night, so Day 2's post will hopefully come sometime on Saturday, after I've settled into Beijing.
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