Entering an Unnatural Habitat: Step 2 - The Flight
Perhaps an obvious part in moving to a new country is the actual process of getting there.
Nonetheless I can't overlook the importance of it, which brings me to this post.
To get to Japan, I took a flight with Finnair (at the recommendation of my grandparents apparently) that flew from Heathrow to Helsinki and from Helsinki to Nagoya. The first flight took about 3 hours and the second took about 9 and 1/2.
Overall the flights were a generally pleasant experience, as far as the 9+ hour flight experience goes, though I do wonder what caused Finnair to decide that blueberry would be the best flavour of juice to provide over the more popular apple/orange counterparts.
Food-wise, and it's worth remembering I'm a weirdly big fan of airplane food despite being a notoriously picky eater, I'd say that the two meals provided, dinner and breakfast, were okay but far from good. As usual, I had no idea what I was eating, but I figured that this was all good preparation for eating many indistinguishable foodstuffs in Japan.
Of course, with such a long flight, the in-flight entertainment is always of a huge importance. I was pleased to discover that the first flight also had entertainment on board, so that I could start my various films marathon even earlier than usual, however the selection was perhaps a little disappointing for me, though I'm not particularly interested in the world of film.
The journey went fairly smoothly on a whole, and we arrived a little tired and fueled by cheap airline coffee and adrenaline. However, things are rarely simple in my life, and before boarding our second flight my sister turned to me.
"Ellie..." She said. "Can you give me my passport?"
A perfectly reasonable request, seeing as until the first flight, I had been carrying it for her. The problem was this: with separate seats, I had returned her passport to her as we boarded the first plane and not had it since.
"You have it." I replied, nonchalantly, after all she was yet to check through her own bag. She checked her bag. She didn't have it. We turned to mum and our aunt. Mum checked her bag, my aunt checked her bag, I checked my bag. None of us had it. At this point the panic set in and soon enough we were emptying bags to be checked again, while the queue to board was getting smaller and smaller. Like when the remote control is lost under a cushion, all trust was lost and despite all of us insisting none of us could possibly have the passport, we were all hypothesising ways that the someone could have it. The queue was now non-existent. We concluded that it must still be on the first plane, though very much doubted that any of us left it there.
We turned to a staff member and explained the situation. A few frantic phone calls later, the passport had been retrieved (from the seat that my sister had sat in on the first plane) and we were safely on board. The passport now rested safely in it's owner's bag and we refused to touch it, for if she lost it again, at least then we'd know it was purely her fault.
Nonetheless I can't overlook the importance of it, which brings me to this post.
To get to Japan, I took a flight with Finnair (at the recommendation of my grandparents apparently) that flew from Heathrow to Helsinki and from Helsinki to Nagoya. The first flight took about 3 hours and the second took about 9 and 1/2.
Overall the flights were a generally pleasant experience, as far as the 9+ hour flight experience goes, though I do wonder what caused Finnair to decide that blueberry would be the best flavour of juice to provide over the more popular apple/orange counterparts.
Food-wise, and it's worth remembering I'm a weirdly big fan of airplane food despite being a notoriously picky eater, I'd say that the two meals provided, dinner and breakfast, were okay but far from good. As usual, I had no idea what I was eating, but I figured that this was all good preparation for eating many indistinguishable foodstuffs in Japan.
Of course, with such a long flight, the in-flight entertainment is always of a huge importance. I was pleased to discover that the first flight also had entertainment on board, so that I could start my various films marathon even earlier than usual, however the selection was perhaps a little disappointing for me, though I'm not particularly interested in the world of film.
The journey went fairly smoothly on a whole, and we arrived a little tired and fueled by cheap airline coffee and adrenaline. However, things are rarely simple in my life, and before boarding our second flight my sister turned to me.
"Ellie..." She said. "Can you give me my passport?"
A perfectly reasonable request, seeing as until the first flight, I had been carrying it for her. The problem was this: with separate seats, I had returned her passport to her as we boarded the first plane and not had it since.
"You have it." I replied, nonchalantly, after all she was yet to check through her own bag. She checked her bag. She didn't have it. We turned to mum and our aunt. Mum checked her bag, my aunt checked her bag, I checked my bag. None of us had it. At this point the panic set in and soon enough we were emptying bags to be checked again, while the queue to board was getting smaller and smaller. Like when the remote control is lost under a cushion, all trust was lost and despite all of us insisting none of us could possibly have the passport, we were all hypothesising ways that the someone could have it. The queue was now non-existent. We concluded that it must still be on the first plane, though very much doubted that any of us left it there.
We turned to a staff member and explained the situation. A few frantic phone calls later, the passport had been retrieved (from the seat that my sister had sat in on the first plane) and we were safely on board. The passport now rested safely in it's owner's bag and we refused to touch it, for if she lost it again, at least then we'd know it was purely her fault.
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