It has been quite the school year for Pam. No matter how tough the year, June 30th always sweeps it all under the rug, both the good and the not-so-good. Most of it, of course, was good. However, ending her 30 years with the Halifax Boys Honour Choir has brought a deeply emotional aspect to the school year wrap-up this year. With all that as a backdrop, not to mention sheer exhaustion, once the last day of school was over, we burrowed into final prep mode for our long-awaited Asia trip.
The planning for this trip began almost a year ago. Mongolia has long been on the radar. Although the other countries tied to Mongolia for this tour morphed in the course of the planning (for example, it was originally supposed to be Belgium and Mongolia), it has always centered around Ulaanbaatar (capital of Mongolia) and the Gobi Desert. But more on all that in days to come.
We put the finishing touches on garden prep and packing, made it to bed by midnight, and were up at 5:30AM. Our Uber picked us up at 7:15AM and, with traffic non-existent on Canada Day morning, we wizzed to the airport in no time. Security was empty, even the airport Tim’s was quiet. Our Air Canada flight pushed back right on time at 9AM and arrived early in Toronto.
Unlike Halifax Airport, Pearson was a zoo. We waited more than half an hour to get into the packed Plaza Premium Lounge for a bite, and then we were off to our Tokyo gate. Our flight to Japan was AC1 (Air Canada flight 001) - I’ve always wanted to take AC1, so boarding the flight was a special moment.
At 13 hours in the air, Pearson to Tokyo Haneda is a long haul, no doubt about it. Somewhere over Alaska, I started to get very antsy, as in, “You have to get me off this plane!” antsy. But it eventually subsided. Air Canada fed us well, and we secured a rare group of two seats in the back of the plane, which was very comfortable. We flew over the Bering Strait, which separates Russia from the USA, skirted the edge of Russian airspace for quite awhile, and then flew down the east coast of Japan, landing in Tokyo 25 minutes early.
I had worked in a four-hour connection time, just to be safe. But we quickly cleared customs, took the bus from Terminal 3 to Terminal 2, ran to the gate of an earlier flight to Nagasaki, just to see if they would let us on, but they did not. Sigh. We found a business lounge, where we were the only non-Japanese people, and joined the utter quiet of the space (you don’t talk loudly in Japanese public spaces, as a rule) to relax while we waited for the connecting flight.
The flight from Tokyo to Nagasaki was on All Nippon Airways, one of Japan’s two main national carriers. It was a pleasant two-hour flight, which put us into Nagasaki at 9:15PM. We made the last bus into the city, arriving at the Marriott Nagasaki at 10:30PM. Honestly? We are zonked. But tomorrow is our only day in Nagasaki and there is much to see, so no time to wallow in travel exhaustion. After all, we are on vacation - and vacations with Dave are not about rest!
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| The sun rose nicely on Canada’s 159th birthday. Our Uber picked us up at 7:15AM. |
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| Poor Pam… She really is exhausted to the core. Before we even took off for Toronto, she was sound asleep. |
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| Just to show what kind of day July 1st was in Halifax. Compared to Ottawa’s rains and floods, which cancelled Canada Day celebrations, Halifax fared well. Here is the new connector highway at exist 5 on highway 102, just south of the airport. |
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| The best deal in the skies is the $10 advance purchase food voucher. You get a sandwich and two snacks! We ate our chicken wraps, but the large bags of accompanying cashews and pretzels will have to wait for another day. The flight attendant even commented, “There! You have enough food for days!” |
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| A dream come true: Taking Air Canada flight #001 (“AC1”). |
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| The Boeing 777-300ER from Toronto to Tokyo Haneda was packed. We secured a rare group of two seats in the rear of the plane, which was super comfortable. The 777 configuration is 3-4-3, which means a lot of “crawling over others” to get to the loo on a long flight. The few groupings of two seats in the back are a dream, in comparison. |
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| Pinch me: are we really on vacation?! |
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| Toronto was 35C and super hazy on this Canada Day. |
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| The flight route from Toronto to Tokyo cuts northwest over North America to Alaska, then over the Bering Strait, then south along Russia;s coastline to Japan’s east coast. |
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| Air Canada fed us surprisingly well in Economy Class! We had beef 90 minutes after takeoff, a tuna wrap and snacks at the midway point of the flight, and a hot breakfast 90 minutes before landing. |
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| Crossing the Bering Strait, which separates Russia (on the left) with the USA (Alaska) (on the right). Republican member of the House of Representatives, Sara Palin, is from Alaska. She was mocked for having stated, “I can see Russia from my house.” Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration, but you can understand what she was getting at. |
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| Tokyo Haneda is in Tokyo Bay, with a runway built on pilings. Quite an architectural feet. |
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| Tokyo Haneda International Airport |
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| Tired, but excited to be in Japan again! |
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| All Nippon Airways Boeing 767 (a rare aircraft type in the skies these days) from Tokyo Haneda to Nagasaki. |
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| The twin aisle 2-3-2 layout of the 767 gives the wide body feel without the massive size. Air canada flew the 767 on the Halifax-Heathrow route for several decades, and it has always our favourite aircraft. Sadly, it is no longer produced, and its numbers are dwindling rapidly. ANA has many of them left, and it uses them on domestic routes. Tonight’s flight was quite empty. Notice the ceiling mounted screens. Another throwback to the early 90s and something rarely seen on aircraft anymore them left it |
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| Unlike back home, where dusk is currently after 9PM, it was already dark in Tokyo, when we taxied out for takeoff at 7:20PM. A hint of the dusk was still visible when we got airborne. |
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| When did our round-the-world trip in 2024, we flew from Tokyo to Hiroshima and had a spectacular view of snow-covered Mount Fuji. This time, it was too dark to see it. But the flight attendant brought me this postcard in lieu. |
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| As we were approaching Nagasaki, we saw large numbers of lights in the ocean and realized these were the lights of anchored ships. |
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| And finally - we are in Nagasaki, population 400,000. After hearing about this place all our lives, as the second city to be bombed by the Americans with an atomic weapon, it is so amazing to be here. |
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| The Japanese have a penchant for building airports on made-made islands. An earlier photos shows the main runway at Haneda, built on pilings in Tokyo Bay. Osaka’s airport was also built on a man-made island, although it’s sinking a few inches per year! Nagasaki’s airport, albeit rather small, is also built on a man-made island - in Omura Bay, north of Nagasaki. |
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| Our first Japanese destination is Nagasaki, in the extreme southwest of the country. (See the red marker.) |
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