Welcome to the sauna. Today was especially humid, and I didn't even wake up till 5pm...

I suppose I should start with the flight, now that I seem to have recovered from it. I flew from Aberdeen to Heathrow on Monday 11th with Dave, and we stayed in a hotel in a place called Horley, near Gatwick Airport. We tried going for a walk, but all we could find were other hotels, and a couple of service stations, so we gave up on that idea. There was also a cute terrapin in the reception that waved at us, and the wall between reception and dining room consisted of a giant fish tank, which I thought was a bit creepy.

The next day, we went to Gatwick at about 10am and met up with Mat, who I flew with. Our flight was at 14.15, and I was quite pleased with the aeroplane, it was a Boeing 777, and we flew with Emirates to Dubai. We got seats together, with one seat spare in between for books and cushions and me stretching my legs, etc. I watched a couple of films on the screen thing, and saw most of Europe out of the window and the cameras, until it got dark. We got to Dubai six and a half hours later, and even though it was midnight there when we stepped off the plane, it was insanely humid and very very warm. But the airport was air-conditioned so we walked around for a couple of hours, I spoke to my Mum on the phone until my credit ran out, and we went to the duty-free supermarket where people were buying full trolleyloads of stuff, and I wondered how they'd get it all on the plane. We boarded the flight to Osaka Kansai a while later, and this time Mat and I were separated by half a plane, and I got stuck in the middle of one of the centre rows and was the only non-Japanese on my half of the plane (an Airbus A345). Mat however, got a front row seat with lots of legroom, and a window. Somehow, I slept for about five hours, although I had no idea how much sleep I'd gotten when I woke up because they didn't bother turning on the flight progress thing for the entire duration (it was a 9 hour flight). It was pretty uncomfortable in the seat, and so I didn't enjoy that flight as much. I watched more films and was pretty bored, until eventually we reached Osaka.

We went through security, met with our taxi driver and were on our way again, but as it was raining and already dark, we didn't see much out of the window. Two hours, a thousand half-read neon signs, 10 McDonalds and a restaurant called "The Kyotominator" later, we arrived at the dorm...