Arrival

This time, the drama was before leaving.

Got to Brisbane Airport at 5.30am, having run the gauntlet of the Valley nightclub streets on the way, only to discover that my Japan Railways pass was sitting at home.

So the brother (who gave me a lift to the airport) and I had to run the gauntlet of the Valley two more times before departure.

The flight -- on a Qantas ticket and a Japan Air Lines Boeing -- was as flights go. Seat 47A of a Boeing 767 gives one a panoramic view of the port wing, nevertheless I got a glimpse of a part of the ocean that is famous in literature.

The flight from Brisbane to Tokyo takes a direct line across the western Pacific. This is the stretch of water across which Ahab sailed the Pequod in pursuit of Moby Dick.

And as I look at the clouds below, I notice one that looks a bit like Laputa, the flying island which Lemuel Gulliver encountered on the third of his eponymous Travels-- which was in these waters -- and written about by Jonathon Swift.

But mostly I watched the movies. One strange one that appeared to be a cross between the Power Rangers and Wallace & Gromit; whilst the other film was a very good, very sad ghost love story.

Missed the N'EX train that connects Narita with Tokyo Station (no stops), so landed up on the Rapid, which makes quite a few stops.

Now ensconced in what's almost becoming my second home, as I keep finding myself here when I'm in Tokyo.

And when I got here, I discovered that I'd left the rechargers for my computer and mobile phone back in Brisbane.

So it's off I set into a rainy Tokyo summers day to get new rechargers, and possibly see a Kabuki version of A Midsummer Night's Dream.