Tag Archives: Transit

Asia 2012

Trip to Fukuoka

Leave a comment

Today was time to say “Good Bye” to Okinawa (cue in Sarah Brightman & Andrea Bocelli) and “Hello Again” (cue in Howard Carpendale) to mainland Japan, because we flew back to Fukuoka (well, not really “back”, since we only transited through there on the trip from Seoul to Naha).

Because it was only a short (95 minutes) plane ride, it wasn’t as exhausting as the trip to Okinawa. Only annoying thing was that they wanted to do a full extra check on my carry-on baggage, so I had to unpack everything (notebook, camera equipment, hard disk, all the regular stuff, etc.), let them x-ray it again, just to pack everything back up after they found… nothing. Steffen, on the other hand, had the easiest check in his life – didn’t even bother to unpack his netbook. I’d say he looks way more suspicious than me, but of course they were afraid they can’t see through my clever poker face.

Anyway, we arrived in Fukuoka (where they checked – for the first time – if we were actually leaving the baggage claim with the right baggage), got our JR Rail Passes and took the next train to our new temporary home – or homes, since we both got our own rooms! Okay everyone, party is on in 505. Bring snacks and drinks, and we will party Gangnam Style (even outside of Korea) all night long!

Asia 2012

Long Ride to Naha

Leave a comment

Let’s make this really snappy. As you might have seen in Steffen’s post (well not really, since he lost his connection at the airport and I just published it a few minutes ago), we were on our way out of Seoul. To be precise, we were on the way to Naha (Okinawa) via Fukuoka.

To sum the day up: We had breakfast in Seoul, lunch in Fukuoka and dinner in Naha. In between we used two planes, a metro, a monorail and two buses. All in all, a very long and stressful trip. Especially annoying was our trip from Naha bus terminal to our hotel, since for once, we missed the first bus and had to wait an hour for the next one. And to make it worse, the trip was a long 80 minute slow ride to the northern parts of Naha.

So all in all, we’re beat. Having a little sinusitis doesn’t make things easier. But on the plus side: CALPIS!!!

Asia 2010

From kinda China to real China

Leave a comment

Good bye Hong Kong. It’s been a great stay, we will miss you.
Hello Beijing, be nice to us, even though we will only stay for a few days.

That just to sum up half of the day, where we flew to Beijing. We even got an upgrade to a better airline, since the one we originally booked, canceled the flight. And this is a sincere wish going out to British Airways. Please talk to Air China regarding food, you can learn so much. Best thing would be you to that before we fly back to Germany with you. Thanks in advance.

In Beijing we soon discovered a very characteristic thing of the city… smog.

And the area where the taxi driver dropped us wasn’t very reassuring, looked like the most rundown part of the city (at least we thought that it looked like that, not knowing anything else of Beijing). The hostel on the other hand was great. Really a nice place that made us feel like we truly were in China. Very helpful too, since the first things we got along with our room key were a map of the city, as well as a guide for some recommended day trips. I wish every hostel would do that.

Pics will follow.

Asia 2010

Flight to HK

Leave a comment

or in the air tonight.

Without any real problems we got semi straight from Stuttgart to Hong Kong, with a little stop in London. There we picked up Alicia, a young medical student, to fill in the third seat in our row. It was quite an enjoyable flight, even though our mentioning of possible crashes and disasters earned us quite a few threats about her punching us into our faces.

The flight went quite smooth, so no sign of air sickness on the entire plane. To compensate for that, BA served “food”. Here’s the dinner as an example, chicken curry.

Being mostly a night flight, we couldn’t see much of stuff like in the following picture, but long intercontinental flight are a great opportunity to watch some missed, but-not-so-important movies.

Oh yeah, did we say “without any real problems”? Well, two minor one’s were that we had some food in Heathrow at the Wagamama (which is quite good), followed by a panicked run, after we found out, that we would need fifteen minutes to the gate, but only had five. The other problem was, that there was a bit of a misunderstanding regarding out train/bus tickets, leading to going all the way to the coach station twice.

Now we are save at our hostel, which will be covered another time 😉 .