What would cause me to go back after such a long absence? Well, the wedding of a good friend!  Plus, I thought it would be nice to drop in on my mum and surprise her, more of that later.

 

Before I could even get to England and the beauty of Chelts as shown in the picture below I had to leave Japan.  Before that I had to buy a ticket, and before that I had to decide on how I was going to get to England!

 

I decided I'd go with Cathay Pacific, they'd treated me well in the past (on my trips to Thailand) and more importantly, I knew I could buy Sobranie Black Russian cigarettes in Hong Kong airport.  It would be easy, besides what is ten hours in Hing Kong? Oh I didn't mention that? Yes, when I arrived in Hong Kong there'd be ten hours before my flight to Heathrow!

 

Ten hours in Hong Kong, well, that's enough time to go in the city and have a lok around and still be back at the airport comfortably in time for the midnight flight.  Cool, ten hours will pass like a fast passing thing I thought to myself as I plumped for the Pacific Cathay flight.

 

Needless to say, the best laid plans of this mouse or man depending how you view me, didn't come to pass.  I spent the ten hours in the airport.  When I arrived in Hong Kong, I asked how to get in to the city and how much it would cost and was disturbed to learn that I didn't have the cash on me. (I have always been terrible at saving, the idea of putting things away for a rainy day is a great one, but I like the rain and thus I don't put anything away to buy umbrellas or to use for train journies into cities that I quite want to see, but am also not really that fussed about as well).

 

Anyway, ten hours in the airport.  OK, you think, he probably slept.  Well, that was one of my ideas, but near the nice little loungers - which are relatively comfortable - are located some of the biggest airport tannoys in the world, so whenever I dropped into a cosy doze I was awoken to learn that "the such and such plane heading to the such and such place was going to leave from gate such and such", and there was another problem as well, it was fecking freezing in the airport, and I hadn't thought to bring a sweater to the airport.

 

Those ten hours took about three years to pass, I explored every nook and cranny of the 'wing' and still managed to get confused leaving the smoking rooms as on the 'arms' they are identical to each other, right down to the decor.  So I'd leave one room and then find myself looking at gate 29 again which I knew I'd passed on the way to the smoking room.

 

Hong Kong airport is quite busy, but as the night drew on, and the hours finally dwindled to a time when it was reasonable for me to head to gate 2, there were less and less people - that was until I got to gate 2.  Bugger I thought!  It will take me ages to get on the plane, still, at least I managed to get an emergency exit row seat, that will give me some comfort during the twelve hour flight.  Oh how wrong I was!

 

Finally it was time to get on the plane, and as per usual there was a little skip in my step, I was heading back to England, I was going to see some good friends and I would be able to drink solidly and at no cost for the next twelve hours.  Oh how I love international flights.  I walked down the corridor leading to Economy class, onto the plane, smiled to the stewardess and made my way to my luxurious emergency exit row seat.  Can you guess what happened next?  Want me to tell you?  Not really fussed?

 

Yes, there I was, glad to be shaking the dust of Hong Kopng airport off of my feet, making my way to my seat, just passed the galley and, what the feck? where's the leg room? my window seat is right behind the galley wall!  Oh bollocks!  where's the emergency exit doors?  I frigging hate this plane, this company, this airport!  Bastards!  I took my seat and tried to sit akimbo-ish so as to avoid the imprint of the wall ruining my beautiful knee caps.  Still it would only be 12 hours!

 

It got worse!

 

The plane was delayed a little because the woman sitting beside me had been lost in the airport (as I already mentioned it is quite samey) still not her fault, it could happen to anyone.  She sat, she smiled, she reached into her travel bag and removed a beach ball and began to blow it up, I leaned against the window watching her out of the corner of my eye, wondering if she was some kind of travel rep and if the ball was for some kind of time killing game.  It took her quite a while to blow it up, infact the plane had just moved round to the runway and was preparing to take off.  She finished her mammoth exhalatory task and put the ball beneath her feet, (she was short enough to have leg room) then the flight attendant came round and told that she'd have to deflate it as the plane was ready for take off.  Not only was the beach ball deflated!  Looking back I wonder if what happened next was due to the smile on my face and suppressed laughter as well as the negation of her efforts.

 

This short Australian woman began to talk.  Doesn't sound so bad does it?  Words fail me, I can't fully express how horrific that statement "This short Australian woman began to talk." really is.

 

She talked, and I grunted.  She talked, and I read the inflight magazine.  She talked, and I ignored her.  She talked, and I started writing in my notebook.  She talked, and I put my TV on.  She talked, and I put my headphones on.  She talked, and I pretended to sleep.  To cut a long story short, she talked! A lot!  And she had me trapped, whilst I was feigning sleep I couldn't very well try and get passed her and grab a beer in the galley.  That short Australian woman ruined my planned flight to England, it took a few hours before she talked herself to sleep and I bravely strided over her and the fellow in the aisle seat, reached the galley and stood there for a bit, eating snacks and drinking beer.  Getting back into my seat was a drama as I had to stride over the comatosed fellow and her and try not to stand on anyones toes or some such.

 

Bloody international long haul flights!  If only I'd been able to smoke that silly woman would have been no problem, as it was, between bouts of sleep, I consumed two boxes of Frisk en route to England.

 

At some point I fell into a reasonable sleep I recokn, and tehn something magical happened, we were approaching Heathrow, and we flew low over London and it was majestic.  I'm not a big fan of London or the South of England, or pretty much anywhere outside of Lancashire and a couple of other places, but as I flew over London, picking out some of teh world famous landmarks I did feel a little warmth in my heart, and I may have even felt my lip quiver with the joy of being English and belonging to the country that created such a great place. Sadly, as the Australian woman was now also awake, my first views of London from that vantage point were sullied by her incessant chatter.  London, wicked view when coming in to Heathrow.  I really recommend that you go to Japan, just so you can fly into Heathrow above London.  Brilliant!

 

Landing!  Immigration!  Baggage collection!  Customs!  Arrivals!  Find somewhere to smoke!  Outside the bloody airport!  Still not to worry, in finding somewhere to smoke I found teh information desk and they told me how to get to Swanley where I would be staying with two good friends Simon and Roz before heading up to Chelts for the wedding and then back up to Burnley.