To Chitose and then From Russia with Love.
An early morning today, it is a double hop to try and catch up a day, so we fly to New Chitose and make a technical stop for fuel and CIQ (customs, immigration and quarantine), before flying onto Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia.
We take the,taxi to Akita airport, this time the driver does not take the express way. Hey it isn't much longer and seems to save $25 to $30. This would have save us $75 to $90 over the last few days. The route is also a bit more scenic, but one can get fed up of paddy fields.
We are met my a man from the handlers, this really is a waiste of money. We had all the paper work from pan Luping and knew are way around, but hey if that is how they want to play it, it is there money. He was a nice guy so, so be it.
We are off quickly and fly north. From the air we see how extensive the paddy fields are and how every flat piece of surface, or any surface which can be flattened is for paddy fields. This country has loads of diggers, purely just to create flat fields of water.
Enroute we get some minor turbulence but not too bad, otherwise the flight is simple enough. Kaori form the handlers made a big thing if the New Chitose being a big airport (Northern Japans biggest), but we thought it was quiet and our arrival was simple enough, we have been to bigger and busier airports.
At New Chitose we clear customs, change status of the aircraft from domestic to international, fill her up and head on our way.
We take of to the north against the landing traffic direction, but as I said this was not that busy an airport. Enroute tot Russia we steadily climb to clear some mountains and avoid turbulence. We pass by a big volcanoe near the north of Japan, Mount Rishiri. Up hear at 6,000. Limping to 8,000 we are now over the white stuff. We can see that it ends but it is real cool. Near Wakkanai we are advised of a taking of jet, A320. It is ahead and cleared to climb to 6,000, restricted because we are at 8,000. It passes through the white stuff just ahead of us and below. We get a chance to fly over the big bird!
Our routing into Russia was simple enough, before we left for,Russia they made a big deal about the flight plan, etc, but this was just not picking. Be adviced however all t's Must be crossed, and i's dotted (also leave in the "intentional" mistakes).
In Sakhalinskmwe are met by 8 to10 people, all with some specific job, I guess. In immigration we are slightly delayed because we have business visa but are also crew, so we should have crew visas, it seems we cannot be both. If we had owned the aircraft in our names this would have been ok, but alas we do not. We manage to show them save the children paper work and they are satisfied.
More paper work at customs and fuel duty office then off to the hotel. Where does Eddie from GASE find these places. Today's delight is a ski chalet style building in the middle of the city. It is a log cabin filled with stuffed bears and the such. The rooms are good as is the food. They have
petty barmaids, (not my type though) but only miller on bottle. The place is warm, not sure if they still have the heating on, but I cannot get the AC in the room to work.
No tomorrow we hope to go further north before heading east.
We take the,taxi to Akita airport, this time the driver does not take the express way. Hey it isn't much longer and seems to save $25 to $30. This would have save us $75 to $90 over the last few days. The route is also a bit more scenic, but one can get fed up of paddy fields.
We are met my a man from the handlers, this really is a waiste of money. We had all the paper work from pan Luping and knew are way around, but hey if that is how they want to play it, it is there money. He was a nice guy so, so be it.
We are off quickly and fly north. From the air we see how extensive the paddy fields are and how every flat piece of surface, or any surface which can be flattened is for paddy fields. This country has loads of diggers, purely just to create flat fields of water.
Enroute we get some minor turbulence but not too bad, otherwise the flight is simple enough. Kaori form the handlers made a big thing if the New Chitose being a big airport (Northern Japans biggest), but we thought it was quiet and our arrival was simple enough, we have been to bigger and busier airports.
At New Chitose we clear customs, change status of the aircraft from domestic to international, fill her up and head on our way.
We take of to the north against the landing traffic direction, but as I said this was not that busy an airport. Enroute tot Russia we steadily climb to clear some mountains and avoid turbulence. We pass by a big volcanoe near the north of Japan, Mount Rishiri. Up hear at 6,000. Limping to 8,000 we are now over the white stuff. We can see that it ends but it is real cool. Near Wakkanai we are advised of a taking of jet, A320. It is ahead and cleared to climb to 6,000, restricted because we are at 8,000. It passes through the white stuff just ahead of us and below. We get a chance to fly over the big bird!
Our routing into Russia was simple enough, before we left for,Russia they made a big deal about the flight plan, etc, but this was just not picking. Be adviced however all t's Must be crossed, and i's dotted (also leave in the "intentional" mistakes).
In Sakhalinskmwe are met by 8 to10 people, all with some specific job, I guess. In immigration we are slightly delayed because we have business visa but are also crew, so we should have crew visas, it seems we cannot be both. If we had owned the aircraft in our names this would have been ok, but alas we do not. We manage to show them save the children paper work and they are satisfied.
More paper work at customs and fuel duty office then off to the hotel. Where does Eddie from GASE find these places. Today's delight is a ski chalet style building in the middle of the city. It is a log cabin filled with stuffed bears and the such. The rooms are good as is the food. They have
petty barmaids, (not my type though) but only miller on bottle. The place is warm, not sure if they still have the heating on, but I cannot get the AC in the room to work.
No tomorrow we hope to go further north before heading east.
доброй ночи
(Dobroy nochi)
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