As I look out of the window, it’s a beautiful Spring day in Tokyo. The Cherry Blossoms are still around in Matsudo, but they are long past their peak in the centre of Tokyo now, and all the tree’s are turning green.

At the moment, I’m bloody tired though. My sleep pattern is all over the place at the moment, and didn’t get much sleep last night.
Good job Yuko and I were able to have a lazy weekend.

From a work point of view, the trip to the UK was pretty shite, but it were some things of note.

UK Bound

I flew back to the UK with Virgin as usual, but this time in Economy rather than Premium Economy. Now, I used to like Virgin’s Economy seats, but having been spoilt with Premium Economy during my trip back in January, I found it pretty tough going. Ahh well.
This time, I was stuck on the aisle seat, with the other three seats in my row occupied by a Japanese lady and her two young daughters (about 5-6 and 7-8 years old at a guess). The two girls were stuck in the middle. I did find it most amusing that the Japaneses stewardesses (on seeing my wedding ring) started assuming that we were all the same family. One of the British Stewardesses, who I guess had check the passenger list, knew I wasn’t their dad, was amusing. She came around serving drinks and realised she couldn’t speak Japanese, so I ended up asking the girl what she wanted to drink instead!

As usual, I got some serious film watching in. I was quite impressed with latest Harry Potter Film (Goblet of Fire). Much darker than the other three. The Weather Man was very average, as was Aeon Flux. Wedding Crashers was pretty amusing though.

In the UK

The UK was pretty much wet and gray, with some sunny spells. A typical Spring then! :)

Mind you, I did enjoy watching “Its Not Easy Being Green” on BBC2. Cracking programme, made even better because ‘The Colonel’ was in it. If you’ve ever watched Scrapheap Challenge (the UK series, as opposed to the US version called Junkyard Wars), you’ll recognise the guy. Top chap!
I really would love to watch the rest of series, and I’m thinking of buying the book.

Heading Home

Waiting in the Premium Economy queue (thank goodness I have my Silver Flying Club membership), I got chatting to the the couple in front of me. The bloke was your typical Brit, and we had a good moan about how busy Heathrow was. School holidays were about to start, and Heathrow was seriously busy. His wife, was the one actually flying, and was a Japanese lady who had lived in the UK for the last 20 years or so, after getting married to him.
Later, I got chatting to the wife again, while we were waiting before the gate opened. Turns out her mother attended one of the first international schools in Yokohama (a Catholic girls school), which would have been before WW2. This lady also attended it. All lessons were taught via the medium of English. Coupled with the fact that she’d lived in the UK for a long time resulted in the most un-Japanese-like 45-50 year old Japanese person I’ve met.

The flight back was pretty dull as usual. This time, I had less choice of films to watch, as it was the same selection as on the way out.
I did manage to watch The Hidden Blade (Kakushi-ken: oni no tsume). As I was watching it, a thought went through my head.
“This is all very familiar!”.
Turns out, the film was made by a chap called Yoji Yamada, who also made one of my favourite Samurai films, called The Twilight Samurai (Tasogare Seibei). Although the sword fight in the newer film is better, overall the earlier film remains the best one. Mind you, I recommend you should watch both if you ever have the chance (don’t go expecting loads of sword fighting, it’s not that type of film).