Justin here. So, this summer I went to Portugal and England.
My main purpose was to visit my parents, who I hadn’t seen for 5 years. I also popped over (made a quick visit) to Portugal for 3 nights, because I had never been there.
Portugal was first because the Heathrow <> Lisbon flights were hand baggage only and I knew coming back to Japan I would have lots of books, snacks, and stuff from England. I flew on Malaysian Airlines and Air Portugal. It took 40 hours in total to reach Lisbon!
Unfortunately for me, Portugal was having a heatwave. The local weather forecast said it was around 38C – just like Kyoto! Even more unfortunate, I had booked to go to two famous places in Sintra, about 30 minutes outside Lisbon, but due to the heatwave there was a high risk of forest fires in the area and they were both closed.
Still, that gave me a full day in Lisbon. There wasn’t actually very much I wanted to see there, but I still walked 20,000 steps! I rode in one of the famous elevators, ate the famous pastel de nata (egg tart), and saw the famous yellow trams.
I then spent one day in Porto, the city famous for port wine. I could visit the Livraria Lello bookshop, with its beautiful staircase, and a port wine cellar. Three glasses of port on an empty stomach wasn’t such a smart idea, but it was tasty! I also went to a sardine factory. It was very interesting because they do almost everything by hand. One woman slices carrots, one slices cucumbers, some others cut the tails off the fish, others wash them, some cut them to fit in the tins (缶). The only machine is the one that puts the lids on the tins. I guess it’s why they cost 700 yen a tin! After the tour we could try a tin of sardines with some nice bread – delicious!
The last day I was back in Lisbon, buying souvenirs to take back to England. After lunch I flew back to Heathrow and picked up a rental car to drive home.
The next five days I was at home. I was very busy. My parents are getting on (getting older) so I spent a lot of time fixing things (the back gate, the door bell, and others), cleaning things (the garage, the spare bedroom, the cupboards), and throwing things out (newspapers, cardboard, broken things, junk mail). My parents can’t drive anymore, so their car hasn’t moved for over a year. They need to scrap (車をスクラップにする) it but they couldn’t find the paper that shows they own the car! I spent about 12 hours searching for that piece of paper! I finally gave up and ordered a replacement on the internet. 20 minutes later I found a bag with some papers and receipts in it, and right at the bottom, I found the piece of paper I was looking for! Too late!! Oh well! Hopefully they can scrap the car as soon as the replacement paper arrives.
They also have three very tall apple trees. There are hundreds of apples this year, but they are all too high to reach. I spent an hour on a ladder with a special apple-picker tool, and managed to get about 50 apples, and, together with some blackberries I picked along the roadside, we had blackberry and apple crumble – delicious! And, of course, we went out for fish and chips!
Two other famous foods in England are cheese (we have more types of cheese than France) and sausage rolls. I bought both of them at a local farm shop. The cheese is Brie style and is made about 20km from my home. The sausage rolls, which are very big, are made at the farm.
But, very soon, it was time to come back to Japan. I drove back to the airport and everything went wrong! I needed to fill up the car with petrol before I dropped it off, but the GPS took me to a closed petrol station. That wasted a lot of time so I was a bit late dropping off the car. Then I waited for the airport shuttle bus. The first one didn’t go to the terminal I needed. The second one didn’t either. Apparently, no shuttle buses went to Terminal 4! So I had to go to Terminal 3 and catch a train to Terminal 4. But the train was delayed by 30 minutes. My flight departed at 21:35 and it was now 20:15! The staff said I should take the tube to Hatton Cross station and then another back to Terminal 4 instead, so that’s what I did. Except the second train brought me back to Terminal 3! It was now 20:45. Luckily, the delayed train arrived at 20:50. I arrived at Terminal 4 at 21:00!! The check-in desks were closed, but thankfully I had already checked in online. The baggage drop-off desk was also closed and I had a 15kg bag full of books and souvenirs. I would have to take it as hand baggage and hope the staff didn’t notice it was too big and too heavy! It also meant I had to throw away 3 bottles of shower gel because of the 100ml liquid limit.
And then my bag ripped (破る) open! And it was a big, long rip – the whole length of the bag!
It was now 21:10, boarding had already started, and the flight departed in 25 minutes! Could I get through baggage checks, passport checks, and get to the gate before it was too late? I was unbelievably lucky because there was almost no one at the baggage checks, and for some reason I can’t understand there was no passport control. Even better, my gate was only 3 minutes away. I got to the gate at 21:25 and they were just boarding my seating section! And no one noticed my big, heavy bag! Lucky! And 30 hours later, I got home. Very tired!!