It has been a busy week again. Monday we finally picked up our long-term Visa at the Japanese embassy in Den Haag. On Tuesday we sorted out which items we wanted to let the movers take to Japan (and we did not need for the first two months) and which items we wanted to take with us directly. The rest of the week was for cleaning up the house, since it would be 'empty' for a few months. On Sunday the day of our departure finally arrived, the adventure starts!

To our frustration the taxi to Schiphol was nearly an hour too late, which was a pity since that meant less time for saying goodbye to all the people that came to Schiphol. After checking in our luggage, we directly went to Starbucks to meet our friends and family and after just a short chat we all together had to go to the Gate already and said goodbye. After passport and baggage check we took the plane to Charles du Gaule, where we would take a connecting flight to Narita. We would rather take a direct flight, especially since this time the connection did not go so well. We had to walk through the entire airport, including going through passport check and baggage check again. This time they were really fussy about the hand luggage and the entire bag had to be emptied and all items checked separately. Luckily, we were able to take a bite for lunch there, though 27 euro for 2 sandwiches and 2 fruit juices is a bit steeply priced...

Once in the airplane again, we had a funny Japanese steward who we quickly called the "happy-happy-steward" due to his super happy and over-the-top behaviour. Very funny to see how he did things. When Michelle got hit in the face by him (he was pointing directions for another passenger) he made up with a funny hand-clap action. After dinner, films, failed attempts to sleep and breakfast, we arrived at our destination: Narita. We took a taxi to our one-night-hotel (Richmond Hotel at Kosugi) because we had too much luggage to go by train by ourselves. During the ride we caught a glimpse of the new Tokyo Sky Tree!

At the hotel we went to bed directly and woke up at 22:20. Just in time to get room service for dinner (hamburger, rice, ceasar salad and cold tea). Now we watch some tv, write the blog and go to bed again. Tomorrow we have an appointment at our apartment, we look forward to it!