Things I learnt during the flight from London Heathrow to Hiroshima

1. Japanese vending machines take notes
This was particularly useful to me, as I only had notes and there was nothing small to buy in the airport departure lounge to give me change. It’s different to how English machines take notes, though. They tend to gobble them out of your hand before you’d even let go, as if it was trying to hurry things up in case you changed your mind. Japanese machines kindly lift the note out of your hand and, with a smooth, whirring sound, you see it disappear. It makes me more willing to part with them. It was useful, though, especially in view of the fact that…

2. Japanese Starbucks has a rubbish cold menu
There was not one of the drinks I actually like to get from Starbucks. I thought the Chocolate Cream Frappanino (copyright?) was the best seller, but apparently they thought the Japanese consumer would have no taste buds.

3. I definitely can’t sleep on planes
Eleven hours, and I didn’t drop off once. Even more unfortunately, I was in a window seat, with a Japanese couple blocking my path to the corridor who slept almost the whole way. I took a rare chance (the woman getting up) to get out for the toilet once and spent the rest of the flight incredibly thirsty, because I couldn’t get out for another drink either.

4. Never eat green sludge, no matter how hungry you may be
I’m still not sure what it was. Something to do with apples, I think, but the description was all in French. I was starving, having, as aforementioned, not been able to get any snacks or drinks, and gobbled it down even though it was quite disgusting. This did not help me when they started the descent down, the only part of a flight that gives me travel sickness. It was like the time I went on the Eurostar, ate something like two packets of sweets, and spent the journey in complete misery.

5. You shouldn’t pretend you’re fluent when you’re really not
Especially not at airports, where if you miss something it could be crucial. I said one simple sentence, “I think it’s 23 kilos” (kore wa nijuusan kilo da to omoimasu), and missed the rest of the conversation because she spoke Japanese back at me. Just because I can know numbers, it does not mean I understand the phrase “Flammable or sharp objects”.