Japan Part 14 - Homeward Bound 2 - Homeward Bound Harder

As I had fully packed the night before - I had a relatively relaxing breakfast. Although I had consistently been eating it - my dad had overstocked bacon and eggs - and we had to leave half of it there. We left a couple of beers in the fridge. My dad the previous night was thinking about bringing 3 cans of cheap Japanese beer back home to Australia - but I convinced him that maybe it would be better if you just left the beer here (instead of lugging it for 5550 miles). My mum brought her apocalyptic supply of toilet paper, all the way from Australian to Niseko - only to find the apartment had its own apocalyptic supply.

As Hokkadio Tracks (company running the apartment) were early in picking up Ant a couple of days ago - they had to "balance" out their performance by being late for us. My mum went into "crazy-psycho" mode as she called up "Tracks" to ask "where the hell is the transport?!". As we were standing around in the lobby - a woman who was getting a van started (for about 5 minutes) suddenly decided to walk thru the door and say "I'm taking you to the bus station". Thanks but you could have said this 5 minutes ago!

We made it onto our bus (after the mad Hokkadio panic attack). The bus driver was definitely more aggressive than the previous night's bus driver. He was maniacally overtaking cars and trucks on small, narrow and icy stretches of road. I was starting to have "flashbacks" to our bus trip in Peru with Elvis....

We arrived a couple of hours early at Sapporo airport. JAL have the most confusing check-in service in the free-world. You need to go to a counter - and get your tickets (without showing ID)... Then you need to go to another counter and check your bags in... It is all very japanesey (let's have lots of staff everywhere and make it all craaazzy!).

We all checked out the Sapporo airport mall - which is chock full of Japanese "knick-knack" stores and food shops. Japanese have a big h@rd-on for little cutesy stuff, like "Hello Kitty" mobile phone string things and puffy green balls. Sacha splurged out on a "Kuma"-Puma style t-shirt (where Kuma is japanese for bear) and some boxer shorts with a little japanese cartoon character whose was well-endowed, dressed in a sailor suit - saying "Stand to Attention" in Japanese.

In order to "outshop" and "outstage" Sacha - Taeko went crazy at all of the food shops. They all claimed to selling products which were "Hokkaido-famous" and Taeko seemed to be able to back up these claims. They had freeze-dried strawberries in chocolate (something I was debating with Sacha that you couldn't bring back thru customs in Australia), Camembert cheese cake (something you couldn't bring back to Australia), lots of fish (something you couldn't bring back to Australia) and a cheese mouse ice-cream (something you couldn't bring back to Australia) - basically - they stocked stuff you can't bring back to Australia!

We all met up at the "food court" - which was basically a collection of restaurants. After being denied a table at one restaurant (because we had 5 people - and they only had tables for four - despite the fact that all the chairs weren't fixed to the ground), we went to a japanese/western restaurant where my parents had been to before on their last visit to Sapporo. We know our s### and ordered some pretty good japanese food (apart from Dad's who had inadvertently swallowed a spoonful of wasabi - full of radish goodness!).

Our domestic flight to Haneda Airport in Tokyo on JAL was a bit cruddy. After forking out $180 per ticket and getting half of a really small cup full of apple juice (come on people - they didn't even have Coke!!) - I was understandably a bit pi$$y.

As you do - my parents had booked these internal flights to Haneda airport instead of going directly to Narita... so we all went on a $35 bus thru Tokyo past Tokyo Disney (which looks a lot like the Magic Kingdom at Disneyworld which looks a lot like Disney Land at LA), except for Taeko - who was spending another week with her family.

My parents - the rich "frequent-flyer" beetches that they are - were traveling on "Business Class", whereas my brother and I were back in "Coach" class. Despite this - we all checked in at the Business Class line - where my mum was trying to convince the check-in lady that we should all be given passes to the business class lounge. She failed to convince her. I then pulled out a "complementary" Qantas Club pass (given to me by Ant) and showed it to her. Ant (who is a FF nutter - and knows all of the rules to all of the FF schemes - and then some) wasn't very convinced that I would be able to use it. But the woman grabbed it off me - and started writing down in Japanese on a bit of paper to let me in to the club.

When we got to club - my mum tried to pull a funny on the front counter door b#tch and said to Sacha - "just run in!". Sacha didn't.

My mum then tried to convince the lady to let us all in and that she didn't want to leave us in the dark, cold and scary airport gates by ourselves (despite me being 26 and Sacha being 25)... She said no.

I said to my Mum - "what about my complementary pass?". She then thumbled thru her handbag and coat trying to find the piece of paper. After about a minute of tense stressing - wondering if my Mum had lost my complementary pass sheet of paper - she pulled it out. The lady gave it a funny eye - and said "Only three can come". My mum said - "we can't leave our (25) year old son out by himself!!". When the lady said no - my mum grabbed her boarding pass and screamed out "I'm not going in!!" and raced off. I shouted back to her "I'm not leaving" - walked into the club and staked out some seats.

My dad materialised 5 minutes later saying that mum was going to go shopping instead. The lounge itself wasn't worth the drama scene that my mum had created - it made the Qantas Club look like the Ritz. There was a bowl of crackers, dodgy individually rapped plastic cheese bits, some really dodgy crackers, and a automatic beer vending machine. It makes the Qantas Club's foccacias look like food at a 5 star restaurant.

My mum turned up to the club (despite claiming never to return) - without my brother - who was given 2000 yen to buy food (the equivalent of almost $30 AUD) - life is tough.

We all had a couple of drinks - mum had read a few posts of the blog and had gotten really offended one the one where I said she "freeked out on the mountain" and that she was a "full time bridge nutter". I told her I had toned it down from "full time unemployed bridge nutter" - but she still wasn't happy. Despite being with my mum (who wanted editorial control over some of the content) - I think that this blog has retained its "fair and balanced" approach to our holiday experiences. I stand by my claim that my mum had "freeked" out on the mountain. It is a "big FOX fact!". I report - you decide.

Our flight to Sydney - took the "scenic route" via Cairnes "International" airport - Australia's tackiest airport - with more Ken Dome crap than any other airport. Although Sacha and I had an exit row to ourselves - I think I had managed to rack up less than an hour's sleep - and the greater than an hour "layover" in Cairnes wasn't doing me any good.

On the actual flight to Sydney - our plane was chockers - and Sacha was forced back to my exit row - where I managed to rack in 20 minutes of dozing-off sleep - making it a grand total of 1 hour and 20 minutes of sleep in the space of 36 hours of traveling. Who needs sleeping pills? And Qantas were kind enough to serve us a "domestic flight" breakfast - including some "Just Right" and a stale museli bar. Ahhh Qantas - bringing the ritziness back to international jetsetting!

After hanging around for 30 minutes at the baggage area - waiting to get back all of our stuff including skis, we had to make our way thru the understaffed customs area. Of note - if customs is really busy - they have officers going thru the "Something to Declare" line - telling you - just go through the "Nothing to Declare line" - but you get x-rayed which is probably more intrusive than the "Nothing to Declare" line where you just show them what you want to show them. This time - I didn't smuggle in any illegal copies of Ken Park.

We all raced to the domestic terminal - fearing that we were going to miss our Canberra flight... But in true Qantas Link form - our flight was really late (30 minutes late). They have a slogan on the wall saying "More Flights, More Seats, More Often" - but I think it would be more accurate if it was "More Flights, More Late, More Often".

To wrap things up - we had a great time in Japan - and I am very happy that Ant enjoyed his snowboarding. So much so - he bought a jacket (hopefully - this will mean he will do it some more!!). Ant has some really big "f### off" bruises on his thighs from the snowboarding - I hope he doesn't say to people that "I get mad when he serves me pork chops for dinner!". The snow was great at Niseko - I just wish the weather had been better - but hey - you can't have everything?! It was definitely memorable with Sacha and Taeko getting engaged - so no doubt we will be back off to Japan in the not-too-distant future. And I didn't lose anything or get anything stolen, or injured myself - as I forgot to organise travel insurance...

Saynora for now!!