Today started in Paris, up at 6 am (Paris time) to walk down to the train station to see of my Dad and my Brother onto a train to Zurich, where they will spend about a week before heading home themselves. After that I headed to my own train, a Eurostar trip back to London. From there, I made my way on the Tube to Heathrow, arriving about 12.30 pm for my 4.30 pm flight.

Night passed during the flight, however I didn’t get much sleep due to the couple sitting next to me. I was lucky enough to get a seat behind the emergency exit, which gifts you the privilege of as much leg room as you would need, in return for being personally responsible for the safe evacuation of our section of the plane. A responsibility worth bearing. But with a British couple with no sense of respect for the cabin crew or the personal space of others, it was hard to rest during the flight. Throughout I constantly poked, prodded and bumped during the flight by the bloke sitting next to me, who had decided that his own seat didn’t provide enough room in itself, that he needed to spread himself into the seats next to him. Worst of all was their willingness to just throw their used food trays and rubbish onto the floor for the flight staff to pick up, but the same staff were whinged about privately when their English wasn’t sufficient (we were on Japan Airlines so I think they really should have given the flight crew a break …).

I’ve been upgraded to Premium Economy for the flight to Sydney, just through asking. Despite complaints about passengers, which can’t be held against them, I have really enjoyed flying with Japan Airlines. Service on par with Qantas at no where near the price.

It’s now about 5.30pm in Tokyo (Tokyo time, about 9 hours ahead), with my flight leaving around 8.30pm. I’m so desperate for sleep, but am hesitant to do it in the terminal out of fear of missing my flight. I’ve been in the airport since 12.30 and am bitterly disappointed that I wasn’t able to find a PS3 slim in the duty free shops (Wii’s and DS’s are in supply funnily enough…).

You may be able to tell that I’m just a little bit grumpy, but at least I’ll be home soon, to kick off another day by landing in Canberra at 9.30 am. Hopefully I’ll get decent sleep between Tokyo and Sydney. I feel like I’m doing a rewind of a month long trip, crammed into a period of 36 hours, with all the fun parts taken out.

I’ll eventually update on my time in Paris when I get the pics sorted out.

Related posts:

1. PARIS! Part 2
2. Pictures
3. Harajuku