France

Bonjour tout le monde!

CaVa? As you can probably gather by the lingo we have made it to the land of the long brown baguette intact and happy; though not entirely without incident (is it ever?).

Monday 11 September 2006

The 4am start was less of a problem than we thought, as I don't think any of us really slept the night before anyway. The drive to the airport in the dark was quite surreal, the only one of us not sleepy was Asher, bright as a button and ready to go (raging cold notwithstanding). Check in was easy enough, though Si was a little nervous about checking the bags all the way to Paris, I think he had visions of turning up to work in France with 1 pair of shorts and no boots.

Dad managed to drag himself out of bed at the same ungodly hour as us to catch a last cuddle with his grandkids before we whisked them off to the other side of the globe.

Our flight to Sydney with Qantas was delayed leaving for 10 minutes because of the weather in Sydney, which wasn't welcome news as we only had an hour to change terminals and clear customs in Sydney already - but what can you do?

Bless Qantas; they put us right in the back row of the plane so there wasn't a chance we could get off early of easily.

As we taxied down the runway my concerns about Asher flying abated very quickly, the engine rumble had him asleep before we were even in the air!

The weather on the way into Sydney was absolutely miserable, windy with cloud so thick we could barely see the wingtips - and a further 20 minute delay to boot. The airhostesses were kind enough to let Japan Airlines (JAL) know we were on our way, but we were fairly worried that we would miss the connecting flight.

Our poor little Possy, Queen of the Airways was actually a bit frightened about the landing, but put on a brave face!

When we finally landed and disembarked we were shepherded straight onto the shuttle bus and told to run for check in K when we arrived. Next time you happen to be in the International terminal in Sydney you will not that K is the final counter and thus the furthest away. Simon and the girls made good time as they paged us over the loudspeaker, but I can't say the same for myself, bouncing 11kg of Asher in my arms as I tried to run down what felt like 10km of corridor. He wasn't too pleased about it - I daresay he felt somewhat like a milkshake.

We were the last to board, but the crew were very gracious. The plane was delayed on the tarmac for another 20 minutes due to weather anyway.

Asher crashed again during takeoff, but we had to wake him up again to change him. That was a fatal mistake as his cold was getting worse and he was exhibiting signs of MORE teething. Restless and grumpy as he was, the airhostesses adored him anyway and he finally drifted back to sleep.

The food on the flight was by far the best airline food that any of us have had to date, though some of the dishes were quite obviously Japanese delicacies and a little different.

They also serve Bombay Sapphire, which is good as their French Wines leave a bit to be desired.

The girls were absolutely pampered with toys, food and attention. I think Ebony had about 2 hours of origami tutelage and Asher was periodically stolen and paraded around the plane to meet the other staff and passengers. They even provided a care-pack for Asher with their own branded nappies and wipes (not to mention the bib, airplane spoon, plush plane etc) and the girls fared just as well.

We landed in Tokyo at night, and though the airport was lit up like a Christmas tree we were disappointed that we couldn't see Tokyo itself from the air.

Our arrival in Tokyo was a quintessential Japanese one; as we stopped to set up Ashers pram we were swarmed by hordes of Japanese school kids. They had been playing peek-a-boo with Asher and the girls on the plane and were now wielding cameras quite zealously.

Needless to say, the 5 of us are probably at this very minute gracing the last page of 80 photo albums across Tokyo entitled "My School Trip to Sydney".

Stepping out of the airport to find out transfer bus was like stepping into a warm bath; we weren't prepared for the humidity and were looking forward to a swim at the hotel.

The Hotel Nikko Narita was nice enough, absolutely huge, geared to short stopovers and reasonably Westernised. They also had a check in counter for the airline in the lobby - which certainly made life easier.

The girls were devastated that the pool was closed for winter (28 degree weather aside), but we dropped our bags off and headed down for a light dinner.

One thing that had escaped westernisation was the plastic display of food at the front of the restaurant. The girls had a good giggle, as so did we when we say that it was not just Asian dishes, but a plastic model of $40 steak and chips.

Si and I had a reasonable Caesar Salad each, and the girls shared a kid’s platter - which turned out to be huge...A burger, spaghetti, prawns, an omelette and chips - followed by fruit, fruit salad, chocolate mousse and cake. Asher had Alphagetti - smuggled though customs with a couple of cans of nana custard.

Simon and I came to the grave conclusion that Kirin Beer is far superior to Asahi and Sappora.

We stopped into the shop for beer and skittles (well m+m's actually), The amount of souvenirs and Japanese delicacies in the tiny shop was amazing, and the girls were given the most amazing tiny paper cranes.

Back in the room Ash was so relieved to be set free he had a field day climbing all over the girls. They had found cotton kimonos and slippers in the wardrobe and got all dressed up for bed...

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