bonjour

i've settled down in paris, in toms house, and everything is pretty nice, but i'll tell you all about that in a little while. i should start from the beginning.

problems arose when tom and i were sent to the naughty bench in sydney airport for problems with toms visa. this was qll sorted out pretty quickly though, and we were soon on our way.

getting through japan airport was one of the most time consuming things i have ever done, in terms of walking from one place to another. i had to show my ticket and passport 5 or 6 times, compared with once in australia and france. this was to get in and out.

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let me just side step here and say that i've just used toms electric toilet. i hope never to use it again.
i know that this blog has more references to toilets than anything else so far, but i also know that high brow information and class is what you've come to expect from me over all these years
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back to japan- we were in line to show our passports for, i think the third time, when we came across... im not sure how to describe him, other than he had no patience, and was rude, but i dont think he realised. the he was at the immigration counter and a korean lady had presented her card that had her details, and her reasons for being there. there is a question of occupation, and she had obviously left that blank because the immigration guy kept asking, over and over

are you a housewife are you a housewife are you a housewife

you will notice that there is no punctuation or gaps for answers. he kept right on asking, but must have decided she wasnt a housewife, since he changed the way he asked

what is your job what is your job i am asking you what is your job what is your
job in korea i am asking you what is your job

even when the lady was looking for something in her bag, he kept asking, not pausing for answers, not trying a different tact or asking someone else to help. eventualy a guy from another line came over to help and tom and i got through with no trouble.

we spoke to an australian woman as we were getting off of the plane. she wanted to find someone to catch the shuttle bus with, since she didnt know where she was going because of all the "chinese writing".
the buses that take you from the airport to the hotel are called limosines. i tried to get a photo but they were always something. the bus trip was pretty quick, i think more than half of it was actually getting out of the airport.

the hotel we stayed in was in narita.

we were under the impression that we'd be staying in tokyo, but we found out from one of the hotel staff that tokyo is actually about 2 hours from narita, and since we got in so late, we didnt have the time to go into tokyo which is a shame.
instead, we wandered around narita which could easily have been the city of melbourne, except with buses instead of trams.
so many bikes, bikes everywhere. not specky mountain bikes like in adelaide, just regular bikes.
it took us a while to find anywhere to eat. a lot of places were closed already, and i was a bit worried i'd end up eating dog or guinea pig since i couldnt read any of the menus. but we found a little place and i ordered the chicken which was the only dish written in english. the man laughed and shared a little joke with a guy at the bar. i'm quite sure now that it wasnt actually chicken. that it was some weird bird-like creature that is so prevalent in japan that they dont know what to do with them. then someone came up with the idea of cooking them up for unsuspecting foreigners, labelling it as chicken.

i could, of course, be wrong

the soup and the vegetable thing that tom got was really nice though.

on the way back to the bus we saw a little pregnant cat that actually looked japanese.

there were a lot of noisy birds, and i thought they might be bats but i couldnt get close enough to see. they were smaller than the "chicken" so i dont think i ate them. they were across the road from that shop though....


back at the hotel, tom fell asleep watching zany japanese tv, and i had a really really nice shower/bath. the bath was so deep and long, laying down comfortably, my toes just reached the end and the water was up to my chin. lovely.

the next morning we had a massive breakfast in the hotel restaurant. i wouldnt necessarily eat rice or noodles for breakfast, but it was there if i wanted it. along with these perfectly white egg shaped things that i later found out, were actually eggs. they were all so completely white that they didnt look like eggs anymore, instead, some strange japanese food i'd never seen before. they are very orderly over there. we were ushered into straight lines all the time. i wonder if the chickens are told to produce regimented 100% pure white eggs.
when tom went off to check his email to see if anyone could pick us up from the airport (thankyou germain!), i spoke to an old couple sitting next to me who informed me that they had spent the worst week of their life in france. she got the flu, and he couldnt stand how rude absolutely everybody was. he also told me he was disappointed that more people didnt speak english in japan. u huh. they were off to amsterdam, "to get into all kinds of mischief", she said.

the flight to paris takes 12 and a half hours. about 6 of those i wont be discussing. in the other 6 i played tetrix, reversi, aces, and solitaire, and watched the wizard of oz.
having mainly flown with virgin blue, i wasnt expecting the amount of food we got, or all the drinks we could get. and i didnt have to pay for any of them. our nice airplane lady even gave me panadols. the toilets had moisturiser and aftershave, and there were magazines and newspapers...heaps of stuff. they were really lovely. they even had some good music on their audio channel. raconteurs, phoenix, heaps of stuff.

you also get to watch the progress of the plane on a map on tv. it shows where you are? where you've flown from, and where you are going. what the time is now in the city you took off from, and the time in the destination city, as well as our expected arrival time. you could also choose between watching what was in front of the plane or below it.

and 12 and a half hours later...
its hot. it's really hot. when we got off of the plane, the heat hit us the way it does in books when people talk about landing in africa or india.
once we were inside the actual terminal it was alright, airconditioning and all that, but out in the air it was hot, sticky and humid.
we met germain as we came out of the arrivals and he greeted us with water and baguettes with pate, saucison and gherkins. i didnt eat anything, but what a lovely french thing to do :P

the drive home consisted of tom and germain talking french french french and me laying in the back seat feeling sleepy and listening. it was a lot quicker than i expected, and we were at toms.
although he hadnt heard anything from his mum, she was home and cooking us dinner as we came inside. she is lovely, and the food is yummy. the cheese is great.

mmmm, cheese

and we had croissants dipped in hot chocolate (made from block chocolate, not powdered stuff) for breakfast.
tonight we're going out to visit tom's friends, once he finishes his homework, and once i figure out the french on this computer, i'll post some pictures.

hope you're all doing good

xxxx