The train to the airport was on time and I hadn’t had any epiphanies on forgotten items or tasks so I spent the majority of the time reading a travel-edition of FHM that I had bought a couple of days prior. Questioning which terminal building I was to head to in Manchester, I settled on Terminal One and headed for the SAS check-in desk. I had, after much hand-wringing, decided to go for internet check-in the night before, sold on the promise of being able to choose a seat – I had of course looked up the aeroplane specs and knew the row which contained an emergency exit and, hence, more leg-room. Unfortunately I was only able to choose my seat for the flight from Manchester to Copenhagen, rather than the longer and more important Copenhagen to Narita; this annoyed me somewhat as I had diverged from The Plan for little gain. Internet check-in meant I printed out my own boarding pass which was bundled together with a selection of other bits of A4 paper (which in turn were all duplicated and stored in my luggage). The only open SAS desk was staffed by a bored looking young woman who evidently wanted to be elsewhere at half past seven in the morning. As soon as I pulled out the stack of paper to extract my pass, I inadvertently managed a wicked paper cut across my left pinky – I figured I needed something to go wrong with the journey and a paper cut wasn’t particularly debilitating. For the rest of the journey I clutched a crumpled tissue to staunch the sporadic bleeding.

Heading towards departures and joining a rapidly lengthening queue, I shuffled around with the rest of the yawning crowd and was barraged with messages of how we were all ne’er-do-wells and couldn’t have anything remotely suspicious in our bags. Forgetting I had some heinous hand-cream on my person, I was forced buy a hideously overpriced clear plastic bag (which was delivered in a thicker plastic ball, hello environmentalism) to put it in. Rounding the corner and through the first checkpoint (passport and boarding card checked, evil eye given by security), what presented itself was like something out of The Divine Comedy: machines of brushed metal in bright fluorescent light with barely human figures staffing them, prodding and poking at the silent and compliant masses filing through them. Dehumanisation is de rigueur with demands to remove belts, open laptops or to lift your arms. Through the system I went with only a slight nod from the baton wielding security personnel when the metal detector didn’t beep and the high-powered x-ray didn’t scry anything spurious. As I began reassembling my dignity on the other side, I listened as an overzealous guard explained to a family that only branded baby food was allowed, not any of this highly suspect stuff in unlabelled bottles. Security theatre in full swing.

The maximum security side of Terminal One was a maze of half-finished building work and labyrinthine duty free stores bathed in the smell of week old perfume testing. After spotting my boarding gate I explored the limited selection of stores for an SD Card reader, having somehow mislaid mine at home and after two days unsuccessful searching I figured I would pick one up enroute. With the closest thing available being a multi-card reader for close to £20, I gave up and had some breakfast at a restaurant with overworked and likely underpaid staff. When my Full English arrived, I was presented with a plate and no cutlery and after trying trying to catch the attention of the waitress to no avail, I queried a till worker who gladly furnished me with a knife and fork. Turns out however that cutlery is stored on the table and the menu was just obscuring it, much to the amusement of the middle-aged couple seated next to me who had watched my dilemma.

With a couple of hours still to go I settled into a quieter area of the terminal and read the book I had brought: William Gibson’s Virtual Light which I thought was an apt enough choice of author given my destination. Heading towards the boarding gate when commanded by the numerous departure screens dotted about, the lounge was already packed but I got the privilege of sitting between two unrelated but still very pretty Scandanavian girls who fiddled idly with their passports. The flight was delayed slightly, perhaps due to the low lying mist clinging to early morning Manchester Airport but otherwise we were lead uneventfully onto the aeroplane. I had at least managed to pick the seat for this flight correctly and was lead to an exit row seat with plenty of leg room which I dutifully utilised by continuing to read my book for the entirety of the flight.

Touching down a blissfully short hour and a half later, I was to experience Copenhagen airport – a thoroughly odd beast from what I saw of it. Following the bright yellow text for “Transfers”, I was deposited into a small hall on the other side of passport control with very little of anything. They were corridors and stairs leading off and a 7-11 nestled under a set of stairs with an array of magazines out front – but otherwise there were no duty free shops, no restaurants and no foreign exchange. With no Danish kroner and no way of exchanging my British or Japanese money, I was left to languish for the two and a half dry hours until the next, most major, part of my flight. Before settling down I checked at the transfer desk that I wasn’t missing anything important (such as my luggage) and was given an affirmatory smile and nod. The recycled air that circulated in the airport microcosm had already made me thirsty so I eventually hit the 7-11 and bought a bottle of Dr Pepper and a magazine to pad out the cost. As there were no restaurants and I didn’t fancy the vacuum sealed sandwiches on display, I made do with the fruit I had brought from home and scanning through the English copy of Empire I had just bought. The other magazines on display ranged from trashy gossip magazines of all languages to the racier Penthouse and Playboy, both on a low shelf within easy reach of children.

While eating my lunch I watched as two noisy American children clambered and stumbled over a nearby playhouse while another, younger Scandanavian child played with them. There was much consternation from the younger when it was taken away by its parents, the two other children kept being a bother though. Close to check-in time I wandered towards the boarding gate that I had found earlier only to end up wandering through winding passages for minutes on end before arriving at a hot, stuffy and crowded lounge. A cacophony of voices assaulted me in English, Danish and Japanese and finding a seat in the throng was difficult. I ended up sitting in front of a low table where two boys of no more than fourteen were playing a raucous card game and then proceeded to build an impressively tall house of cards. Boarding was delayed shortly due to the late arrival of the plane, however this didn’t stop a long queue of people forming at the gate. I wondered as to their mentality: that with assigned seat numbers so many people were still eager to get into the aluminium tube they would be trapped within for the next 12 hours.

Heading on to the Airbus A340 once the line had dispersed, I was seated on an aisle seat a couple of rows after “Economy Extra” – lamentably only a row away from extended leg room. I had learned from past long haul flights that having easy access to the toilet beat the half hour at take off and landing when window seats were useful. Thankfully even this was mooted once I found the down and forward camera options in my seat-back display. Before taking off, I wound my watch forward to JST and tried to convince myself that it was almost midnight.

Hanami in Ueno

Hanami in Ueno

Hanami in Ueno

Hanami in Ueno

Festivities

Cherry blossoms in Ueno

Cherry blossoms in Ueno

Down the main Ueno park strip

Festivities in Ueno

Sake barrels

Rain and cherry blossoms

Ueno at night

Ueno at night

And these keyboards are very strange to type on, I accidentally hit the Japanese key a short while ago an the level of panic I felt when I couldn’t change it back was great. I also keep missing the shift key but that’s likely because of my lack of coordination at the moment.

Won’t write a huge epic rundown of what happened so in short: journey was fine, planes delayed slightly but not by much. Manchester terminal one security is like one of the circles of hell described by Dante, an utterly dehumanising experience. SAS flights are just like every other really but I managed to sleep somewhat. Landed and met up with the tour leader and a couple of others from the group, got straight into my room so had a shower and felt slightly more human. Went over to Ginza and had a wander around (read: got lost) and then headed to Ueno park for some Hanami. The park was packed but everyone was having such a good time it was hard not to get swept up in it all. Managed to get some tea and met up with the two from before again and went to Ueno again for some night shots, shame it was raining a bit. Got to sleep at nine, slept pretty much straight through till six, no sign of my aeroplan throat this morning.

Now, to Akiba and Harajuku!

Maybe organising it would help.

No, that really didn’t help…

Nothing for it I guess.

That was surprisingly easy.

Sure it probably weighs over twenty kilos, but what’s a dislocated shoulder between friends?

The madness begins…

My brain mostly works on the idea of “if”. Given time to gestate, certainties and decisions are questioned and scrutinised; for instance, on a journey to London for a meeting at 1:30pm I know the train I should be catching but if something happens with that train, I can catch another one however many minutes later. Having multiple ifs is when I’m most relaxed, and mostly they come from doing the journey before or planning for it or having as few immovable times and places as possible. This mentality usually translates to showing up at whatever transport station is the most important in the journey (train stations and airports fall into this category) with “ample” time to spare. Ample time usually equating to three or four times longer than I really have to wait: the more time I’m sitting twiddling my thumbs is more time that could have been used up on ifs.

For a long time, I scoffed at document wallets; the ones touted in shops of sundry right next to the “luxury passport holder” and neck pillow (ensuring you get the minimum amount of sleep for maximum amount of neck discomfort). I then realised that document wallets serve the purpose of compartmentalising items which in turn compartmentalises the part of my brain worried about the location of all items on my person at all times, thus reducing my worry. I could, as an example, just fling everything into a backpack and extract items and documents as and when I needed them; however, my backpack also contains a magazine and food, I’ll have to navigate them (sacrificing precious seconds) to get at just one item. Conversely, keeping everything together potentially makes it easier to pilfer, unfortunately thievery is a game stopper and one has to balance the mental anguish of keeping items safe with alleviating angst. I still scoff at single passport covers however because they serve no other purpose than to kill a cow (another cow potentially if your passport is already leather bound) for your style or to satisfy your lust to “bling” your travel documents.

I have, if anything, mellowed out somewhat from my earlier days of borderline neuroses. This has mostly come about due to further journeys and understanding how systems work (where to go in an airport, where to look for times, where best to sit and people watch) but mostly by travelling with other people. Time was when I would eagerly stride off on my own if not simply because it meant I would no longer have to encompass other people, with their own whims and timetables, into my carefully laid plans; nowadays I understand the push and pull of journeying with others and in return they brook me at least some leeway with being at places an hour before we can even access ticketing desks.