Fly High

Edinburgh-Heathrow

I didn't want to have many transfers because of anxiety so I decided to go with BA, flying from Edinburgh to London and then London to Japan. It was about £500 return (but that was for premium economy, it's about £100 cheaper for just economy) I had to wait for a long time to book the return date I wanted because they only let you book for up to something like 350 days in advance but I think you can change it for free, anyway.

 In the morning I got to the airport to discover the flight had been delayed and I wouldn't get to London until about 12, which was really worrying because my flight to Japan was scheduled to take off at 1:30 and I was already anxious about transferring at Heathrow despite it only being one transfer...However, a quick check on my phone app for BA showed the Japan flight was also delayed until 3pm so I felt better. I checked in online (do this by the way you can pick a seat for free 24 hours before the flight leaves, and print your boarding passes for both flights) but I had to wait for about an hour and a half at Edinburgh airport because there were 3 flights checking in at the one time (and there was no separate area for people just dropping off their suitcases) so yeah the BA website kind of lied when it said it would be quick lol. We were told to move into another queue but then the queue we were in had people served more quickly than us and mum was less than pleased to say the least. Anyhow, we finally managed to chuck our luggage in and then go upstairs to security where I had to say goodbye to my dad :( (I flew to London with my mum&bro&fiona because I wanted some company and mum&bro were going to London on a trip). Went through security in about 2 seconds flat then headed on to departures where it turned out we were sitting right in front of our departure gate which was pretty nice. On the plane on the way over we were served breakfast which was egg, bacon, mushroom and tomato. It was okay I guess but the bacon wasn't very nice...To be honest I was pretty upset on the plane because I realised it was really happening and I had to say goodbye for a year (plus yeah anxious about airports) so I started to cry (though not noticeably to everyone on the plane lol) . A nice flight attendant thought I was a nervous flyer and was really understanding when we explained I was worried about transferring at Heathrow and explained it to me so I felt a bit better. After leaving the plane and saying goodbye (:( ) Fiona and I went through to connecting flights and read the screen to see our gate would be up at about 13:55. To be honest, in the end it wasn't that difficult to transfer from Edinburgh to Heathrow, we were leaving from the same terminal we arrived in and it was easy enough to find a BA help desk with a really nice attendant who told us that it probably left from terminal building 5C and it would come up soon. Which it did, saying Gate C66. To get there, we had t get on a transit train that was really easy to find. As was the gate, but the Japanese people heading there might have helped a little.

Heathrow to Japan

So boarding time arrived and the woman mentioned something about a seat change. I was okay with this because I figured I'd just be moved forward a bit or something but when she gave me my new boarding pass she just so happened to mention the words "Enjoy, it's an upgrade to business class".
Yup. An upgrade to business class. Something I thought only happened in the movies. Business class was therefore pretty nice. They offered us a drink (including champagne) as soon as we got on the flight, and handed us a hot towel. The seats could recline in several different ways including turning into an actual bed. There was a foot rest, a pretty big table, and the entertainment system could be easily out away (although maybe that isn't very cool...)We got an actual menu to choose a 3 course meal from for dinner and breakfast. For dinner I had some sort of walnut rice salad, then beef with mashed potato and green beans, then for dessert I had chocolate pudding. They gave us fancy rolls, too. After dinner the lights were put out so we could try to sleep, but I still couldn't even though it turned into a bed~ For breakfast, we were given a Japanese style breakfast consisting of some sort of weird thing that looked like porridge but tasted bad, fruit, croissants/pastries. We were then offered a hot breakfast. Yeah, apparently business class people need 2 breakfasts. I didn't eat it though because I was stuffed by then.

With all that food the flight didn't seem to last very long and I didn't get to use the entertainment system as much as I wanted. I really wanted to watch tangled, and the avengers, and the lorax, and the hunger games etc but the only thing I would up doing was listening to 90s Music Collection (the Spice Girls) and.....One Direction. Don't judge me (although I think I should give up by now since everyone knows I like SMAP)

NARITA AIRPORT

We got off the plane (IT WAS HOT) to find some guy standing there who said one of Fiona's suitcases was arriving on the flight the next day because of some odd reason (Oh BA) so we were to meet him after we went through immigration to sort it out. Oh, Immigration. I like how the consulate was all YOU NEED EVERYTHING YOU OWN. There's a big queue for foreigners that you have to stand in for like 30-45 minutes before you finally go up to some guy behind a desk who doesn't seem to know much English. He looks at your passport and disembarking-tion card (which I totally did not think I had filled in properly) and then makes you give him your fingerprints and takes a photo of you. He then issues you with your new residence card, which uses YOUR CERTIFICATE OF ELIGIBILITY PHOTO. I guess mine isn't too bad but like I still look rather distressed and like a deer in headlights. After going through immigration random Japanese man was waiting for us who then took us downstairs to get our cases (or in Fiona's case her one case www nice pun there lauren) and they actually lifted them up onto a trolley which was really nice of them but this whole Japanese over politeness thing feels sort of strange to someone from Scotland who is used to having to do these sorts of things alone (although let's be fair he might have just helped because we had to go see about fiona's other case). After I gave random Japanese man the 3 addresses we would be staying at within the next week, we headed to customs. Who are not nearly as scary and wanting to steal my harddrive as I thought, the guy just stared at my Yakkan Shoumei (medical certificate for bringing in medicine for more than one month) and my medication and was like 'Aye okay on you go sayonara'. Reminds me, when getting a Yakkan Shoumei if you can't buy Jp stamps or international response coupons you should write them a note like 'lol guys I'll send you 110 yen/3 Japanese stamps when I get to Japan promise'. Although to be honest 110 yen is like £1 so I don't really know if I'm going to actually do that because if they're going to chase me up for it that is quite stingy.

After customs, we headed outside to check when the bus would arrive to take us to our first hotel - Radisson Hotel Narita, but it wouldn't arrive for another half hour so we went to sit inside in the nice cold air conditioned airport arrivals section. We then went outside and got on the shuttle bus with some Japanese folk. The Radisson said it'd take about 15 minutes from the airport but it took twice that time. However, when we got there....

TO BE CONTINUED