Christmas in Japan

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Day 1: BARCELONA - ISTANBUL

Friday, December 20, 2013

Almost everyone starts with the alarm clock, if not all of our travel diaries.
And as always when we write that this alarm sounds is that we have a journey underway and this time it is ours Trip to Japan.
We will pass the Christmas in Japan!!
This morning we went to work like the rest of the days of the year, but at 12.30 in the morning Roger came to pick me up at the office to go directly to the Prat Airport, where we left our car, as always safely in Aparca i Fly.

Road to the Airport to spend Christmas in Japan

This time we have hired the Premium Service, with which we will save some good minutes, since they come to find us the car at the same T1 and on the way back they will return it to us in the same place, so we save the trip to the parking lot.
Our flight to Japan It will take off from Barcelona at 5.35pm and we will make a stopover in Istanbul for 3 hours, before taking off again from Turkish lands, this time we are already on our way Christmas in Japan.


When we arrive at the check-in counters of the Prat they have not yet opened the check in, so we take the opportunity to eat some snacks and have some coffees and start reviewing the planning of what will be our next days in Japanese lands.

Waiting for billing counters to open.

The hours in this "no man's land", as we usually call the airports, pass quickly, especially when it comes to the first day of travel and the tickle in the stomach remind us why we like to travel so much and this time we are not going to deny that the possibility of spending Christmas in Japan has us more than excited.

We start Christmas in Japan at Prat Airport

We bill without problems, although we are struck by the fact that for the first time they ask us for the online billing forms, when they always, just by delivering the passports, they issue us boarding passes.
Now lighter without the suitcases, we look at the panels and see that our boarding gate is in zone E and we already know from experience that in that area it is difficult to find some leisure areas, it is not like on the ground floor, so before to pass the passport control we go down to have another coffee and stop at the bookstore, where we can not avoid buying a travel guide, for a destination that we have almost confirmed for next year ... Surely we will put it to good use on the flight of back when we have the post vacation syndrome to the surface.
We revisit the currency exchange and verify that if it continues like this we will not be able to complain!


Recommended travel cards

Remember that in order not to pay commissions and always have the current change we recommend you use the N26 card to pay and the Bnext and Revolut cards to get money at the ATMs. They are the ones we use, They are free and will save you a lot.
You can find more information in this article about the best cards to travel without commissions.

And hoping that the weather will behave better than we saw yesterday, we look at the degrees expected in Takayama, the destination we expect is the coldest of the trip and we see the same figures as these previous days, so we have no other something to resign and begin to assimilate that perhaps, we will spend a little cold 😉

In the absence of half an hour to board, we go up to zone E where they announce our flight at the scheduled time.

Waiting for our plane with hundreds of lights around us ...

The countdown begins, Japan here we go!
We are a few hours away from starting our Christmas in Japan.

A few minutes to start our trip to Japan!

The Turkish plane, which will take us to Istanbul is very small and the truth is that it is something that catches our attention, since it is not a short flight precisely.

Space on the plane that will take us to Istanbul.

We spend 3 and a half hours of the flight almost without realizing it, reviewing the notes we have for the next few days.
When we realize there are a few minutes to 23h and we are already flying over Istanbul.
Who was going to tell us that we would step on Turkish soil after a few years and that it would be like a door to a trip to Japan!
We got off the plane and before going to the next boarding gate we have to pass the traffic controls and as soon as we get to this area, we find a huge queue of people waiting to pass the control.
We meet again in "no man's land" and here we change the day ...


We are going to spend Christmas in Japan !!!!
Day 2
BARCELONA - ISTANBUL

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