Putting a Spanner in the Works
We wake up to rain this morning. I was expecting this. The good news was that Man Utd. won the Europa Cup. That now completes the clubs European trophy cabinet, and we are back in the Champions League, seeded above Tottenham, City, Arsenal and Liverpool.
Because of the rain we decide to delay / cancel our flight and start looking for a hotel to stay in. Our current hotel will not gives us the same rate we had last night. Eventually we find the Bali Hotel and Resort just around the corner thus avoiding a ridiculous taxi fare. Our checkout time at the current hotel is 11 am, so I get to have a snooze.
At 11 AM the weather looks much better and we spot a window of opportunity, in fact it would be better to go now than to wait for tomorrow. So that is what we decide. First we have to cancel our hotel booking. so we have to walk to the hotel and do this at a cost of $30 each. Next we tell Tomasc of our plans and arrange to meet him in the Subway. After frantically looking around the subway we finally find the correct line and meet Tomasc.
At the Yai City airport we tell the handlers of our plans. Noevir Aviation, our handlers are not too keen, they have already cancelled the permits, we no longer, have a heli spot booked and Japan is not set up for such spontaneity. We rather abruptly tell them to sort it out, we fly in accordance to the weather not in accordance with bureaucracy. I was probably a little forthright, but we wanted things to be done now not later, we had a window of opportunity you see.
This led to countless emails back and fort with GASE (Ahmed had to deal with this since Eddie was sleeping as he had also assumed the flight was off). which we luckily did not see, otherwise it would have done our heads in. The upshot was that an hour and half later we managed to takeoff. The takeoff was and flight was straight forward enough and as with the rest of Japan our flight took us over lush green land and blue seas. One thing that I have noticed in Japan is the propensity of Electric pylons and towers. I note that we really do need to be aware of these when travelling through the hills.
Landing in Akita is trouble free and we are met by Pan Luping and because Peter's name is Peter we make bad jokes about Peter Pan. Pan is from Shanghai but works with Neuvi Aviation in Tokyo. He has traveled to Akita to just handle us!
We take a taxi to our hotel the Route-inn in Omagari. This is about a 40 minute taxi ride a ¥15,000 ($150!). Ouch!
After sorting myself out we head for dinner. We are in a real Japanese town now so no western restaurants. Dinner is at a private dining restaurant where luckily i manage to get a Pizza, 😋.
After dinner \ I decide to checkout the local night life and stumble upon the Rush Bar. There are not many people here, it is Thursday night. I chat with the barman and owner and his friend. Good English and good chaps. There is another gentleman there who also chats but he is too interested in my Watch for my liking and keeps repeating ahhh Breitling! Luckily after 30 mins of Ahhhh Breitlng! he moves away. Later I take some pictures with the owner, who post them on Instagram and then I depart t check out any other bars (we are not flying tomorrow).
This time I enter Harry's bar and end up talking to two Japanese girls through another guy who translates for us with the aid of Google Translate. Google Translate has been working wonders here in Japan. More pictures and then off the sleep at around 1:30am
Because of the rain we decide to delay / cancel our flight and start looking for a hotel to stay in. Our current hotel will not gives us the same rate we had last night. Eventually we find the Bali Hotel and Resort just around the corner thus avoiding a ridiculous taxi fare. Our checkout time at the current hotel is 11 am, so I get to have a snooze.
At 11 AM the weather looks much better and we spot a window of opportunity, in fact it would be better to go now than to wait for tomorrow. So that is what we decide. First we have to cancel our hotel booking. so we have to walk to the hotel and do this at a cost of $30 each. Next we tell Tomasc of our plans and arrange to meet him in the Subway. After frantically looking around the subway we finally find the correct line and meet Tomasc.
At the Yai City airport we tell the handlers of our plans. Noevir Aviation, our handlers are not too keen, they have already cancelled the permits, we no longer, have a heli spot booked and Japan is not set up for such spontaneity. We rather abruptly tell them to sort it out, we fly in accordance to the weather not in accordance with bureaucracy. I was probably a little forthright, but we wanted things to be done now not later, we had a window of opportunity you see.
This led to countless emails back and fort with GASE (Ahmed had to deal with this since Eddie was sleeping as he had also assumed the flight was off). which we luckily did not see, otherwise it would have done our heads in. The upshot was that an hour and half later we managed to takeoff. The takeoff was and flight was straight forward enough and as with the rest of Japan our flight took us over lush green land and blue seas. One thing that I have noticed in Japan is the propensity of Electric pylons and towers. I note that we really do need to be aware of these when travelling through the hills.
Landing in Akita is trouble free and we are met by Pan Luping and because Peter's name is Peter we make bad jokes about Peter Pan. Pan is from Shanghai but works with Neuvi Aviation in Tokyo. He has traveled to Akita to just handle us!
We take a taxi to our hotel the Route-inn in Omagari. This is about a 40 minute taxi ride a ¥15,000 ($150!). Ouch!
After sorting myself out we head for dinner. We are in a real Japanese town now so no western restaurants. Dinner is at a private dining restaurant where luckily i manage to get a Pizza, 😋.
After dinner \ I decide to checkout the local night life and stumble upon the Rush Bar. There are not many people here, it is Thursday night. I chat with the barman and owner and his friend. Good English and good chaps. There is another gentleman there who also chats but he is too interested in my Watch for my liking and keeps repeating ahhh Breitling! Luckily after 30 mins of Ahhhh Breitlng! he moves away. Later I take some pictures with the owner, who post them on Instagram and then I depart t check out any other bars (we are not flying tomorrow).
This time I enter Harry's bar and end up talking to two Japanese girls through another guy who translates for us with the aid of Google Translate. Google Translate has been working wonders here in Japan. More pictures and then off the sleep at around 1:30am
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