Back in January this year Robyn stumbled upon a Jetstar airfare sale that allowed us to purchase flights to Japan in Business Class for the cost of an Economy ticket. As a result I figured we would have a fairly easy flight on the way out. Then I worked out the schedule: up at 3am, to allow us to be out by the house by 4, at the airport by 5, and flight departure at 6. That was followed by a 2 hour layover in the Gold Coast before we could actually get into the air on our way to Japan proper. Not the greatest way to start a day.
The Dreamliner 787 is a pretty swish aircraft, especially after the domestic plane that we took for the first leg which was looking very much the worse for wear. I'd chosen the second row of seats as the first was already gone by the time I got round to trying to place us on the plane, which turned into a real pity.
Robyn and Will try to get comfortable
But we had a fair bit of room, bigger seats, better food and reasonable video facilities. Basically it equates to the Premium Economy section of other airlines and is a fair step up on your basic Jetstar Economy seats.
Our difficulty concentrated on one family we were traveling with: mother, father, daughter about 8 and daughter about 3. They had obviously found it hard to get four seats near each other in the 3 rows of Business Class so had ended up with 2 in front of us in row one and 2 in the third row. He kept on looking back at his kids at what seemed like 30 second intervals (catching my eye every time as he had to look straight past me), the youngest kept on complaining about everything, and the mother couldn't work out if she wanted to sit with her husband or one of her daughters and so was up and down seemingly all the time, with, of course, her seat tilted back as far as it would go.
By the time we got into Tokyo we were exhausted. An hour to get through immigration and customs, an hour fifteen from Narita Airport to Shinagawa Station, a short trip in a taxi to our accommodation and we were about ready to drop. Only to find that the apartment Robyn had booked in the World City Towers overlooking Tokyo Bay was fantastic and the owner - who waited for us to arrive - was terrific. A short trip down to the local supermarket for supplies and we just crashed.
I figured we'd been on the go for about 20 hours and I think it was one of the toughest journeys we'd made. Maybe I'm just getting too old for this sort of caper.
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