Breakfast. The brand-new cherry-blossoms are in the hotel garden, and the stoicly purposeful slow-conveyor-belt toaster is in the breakfast room. Noise. Lots of very jolly Japanese students going somewhere nice. Took me an embarrassing three minutes to work out how to operate the hot-water urn for my tea. If there is one very large button, ignore the smaller ones and press that.
Beyond the white steel double-gate at the end of the hotel's "Serena" garden, beyond the small perimeter road and at the start of the deep valley of forest at the rear of the hotel, is a sign saying "Be Aware of Snake".
Boarding JL 401 to Heathrow. Seat 40C (yes! Early check-in worked). Board 11.45am, departure 12.05pm, takeoff 12.30; we taxied for ages, as we did arriving last night; this place is HUGE!
This leg, flying at this hour, scores us at least 20 hours or so of consecutive daylight, fleeing the encroaching dusk behind us. No northern lights for me this time.
More green tea, Sky Time, and at Sydney supper time, a little Old Carp scotch. JAL Britain flight attendants with former head girl looks and accents as crisp as their shirts. Have watched Shinji Aoyama's "The Lakeside Murder Case" three times on these two flights. It's that good.
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