Day 5, Frankfurt

I dreamt of cats last night!

 This was our last morning in Japan, unfortunately, as it was supposed to be only a stopover on the way to Germany.  We were pleasantly surprised by the place and hope to return one day for a better look.

Meanwhile it's on the train from Nishiarai through Oshiage to Daimon, and from there on the Hamamatsucho Monorail to Haneda airport.  This is a bit closer to our hostel than Narita was, so we were there in plenty of time, ready for our eleven hour flight to Frankfurt.

Lufthansa was efficient, as expected, but the staff were not as attentive as the Qantas flight crew.  In fact the captain did not introduce himself until half an hour before we landed! I did get to watch 'The Others', Ín Bruges', and 'The Ones Downstairs', which passed the time quite well. It was also interesting to observe the countries we were flying over - namely China, Russia, Finland and Estonia.

Once we had landed at Frankfurt we were prepared for the usual painfully slow journey through immigration, but to our amazement it was the quickest experience we have ever had.  In fact it was quite bizarre, as there seemed to be no-one around except a couple of guys at customs having a bit of a joke.  We were virtually waved through and could have been anybody carrying anything! We didn't complain though.

We then picked up the shuttle at Terminal 2 to drop us at our hotel for the night, which was friendly and funky, part of a chain of hotels called Meininger.  We crashed into bed at 9.30 pm  (4.30 am Tokyo time).