Land of the rising sun (arrival)

Wake up, its time for breakfast

Civilised from the start, no scrum
to get baggage like Sydney airport

My taxi awaits

Nice lace touches

A quick trip in

This is where I am staying

Departing Sydney at 9:45pm is way past my bedtime, But thanks to Qantas and an upgrade to the pointy end of the plane I had a good sleep and barely noticed the flight. The only entertainment was the announcements in English and Japanese. All I could understand in Japanese was arigato gozaimasu (thank you very much), I wonder if I will understand more on the flight home.  A 9-hour flight with most of it asleep seems like a walk in the park compared to the London pilgrimage.

We land just as the sun is rising which seems a bit poetic. Let's see how customs works in Tokyo, no surprises the same as anywhere else. But all the security people have very official looking uniforms, peaked hats, gold braid, quite formal.  My new passport is initiated and its time to find that bag. Woah, what's this? A line for people to stand behind and then move forward when their bag arrives, how civilised. Nothing like the rugby scrum at Sydney airport.

Now for my first taxi ride, a nice yellow car that looks new but stuck in a time warp from the 70’s. Nice touches on the inside, lace protectors on the seats. Looks a bit Italian to me. Globalisation? It's funny the things you notice when everything is new. The driver is very nice but does not seem to be able to read my instructions in English or Japanese and spends half the trip pretending to type in the address to the GPS. Maybe he just drives on Saturdays to make some pocket money to take the grandkids out. Anyhow it only takes about 20mins and we are here. First mission accomplished.