Peter's Japan blog

I had quite an early flight, at 7h15 in the morning, which means being at the airport at 5h15, so I had to get up at 4h :s Then first a flight to London, where I had to wait 5 hours till my flight to Tokyo. When I was on the terminal bus between terminal 4 and 3, we came past an Airbus A380 from Singapore Airlines! ;p It was so sudden I couldn't take a picture :)
But because of security checks and the transfer of terminal, the waiting time at the terminal was 1.5 hours less ;p (still 3.5 hours though). Then the long 12h flight to Tokyo. As expected didn't really sleep. We arrived 10 minutes earlier than expected. I had already exchanged my money in Belgium, so didn't need to stand in line for exchanging money. Straight to the japan rail pass exchange office. The friendly older guy told me that the Sakura festival had just ended but that there were still blossoms in Ueno Park. I had to go see that, but that's for the next post ;p. Took the Narita Express from JR to Tokyo this time. Those trains are cool in the fact that when they have arrived at the terminal, the seats rotate to the other direction and the train goes in opposite direction but you are still faced forward ;p. Only one downside to the Narita Express, it doesn't top at Ueno Station but at Tokyo Station. So you still need to go from Tokyo to Ueno Station with the Yamanote Line or Keihin-Tohoku Line.
The rest is for next post. But here are some pictures of this part:

Follow up:

The sun comes up at Brussels Airport:

The first smaller narrow-body Airbus A319 to London:

The second large and very long wide-body Airbus A340 from London to Narita:

Inside the gate:

Me in the Narita Express, looking quite tired: