Around the World for the 2nd time [Day 2] London ⇒ Kenya

Hyatt Hotels near Heathrow Airport

In case you are wondering, I gave her the nickname ‘mermaid’ because when she goes into the sea, she spins round and round forever, playing with the dolphins and never coming up on board. Mermaid and I often go abroad with other friends. Jeep Island, Singapore, Bali, etc.

Morning at the Hyatt Hotel near Heathrow Airport, breakfast in the restaurant on the first floor. It’s buffet style and the taste is about 65. Not bad. Sausages, scrambled eggs, orange juice, bread, etc. In Japan, you can usually get an idea of what the food tastes like, but at foreign buffets you think, “This looks good!” But in overseas buffets, you often find that the food tastes completely different and bad.

I took a bit of scrambled egg that looked so delicious on my plate and tasted it. The potatoes are also mixed in and a little salty. This is how I taste and adjust the portions of the meal. When I had finished eating, the mermaid came and ate with me. The honey in a small jar for spreading on bread looked delicious, so the mermaid snatched a jar.

We check out and take the bus to the airport. We took the same bus yesterday, but the driving was rough and if you don’t hold your suitcase down, it will move around. The bus is also rough, so the centrifugal force takes the whole luggage with it and it ends up being swung around. The passengers ahead of us were giggling. It’s OK if we get a laugh.

Check in at the British Airways counter, go through security and head to the lounge. According to the map, it’s a 20-minute walk to the lounge. That’s ridiculous. But we tried to follow the map anyway, but it was a complete mess and we couldn’t get there at all. We managed to find the lounge ourselves, but it was a five-minute walk.

I had a lot of coins from countries I had visited in the past, so I had brought them with me to put in the UNICEF and other donation boxes that are usually set up at all airports. When I told this to the mermaid, we decided to count them in the lounge. The coins included US dollars, euros, Korean won, Thai baht and Balinese rupiah. I kept the dollars and euros as I could use them and decided to donate the rest.

When We went to the boarding gate for the flight to Kenya, We saw many black people and realised that I was going to Africa. The line-up of business class seats is interesting, see image below.

Front.
(Window) ▼|▲ Aisle ▲|▼▼|▲ Aisle ▲|▼ (Window)
Rear.

I was in a ▲|▼ seat and when I sat down, I felt very uncomfortable. I was in ▲ (sitting facing the direction of travel), but ▼ (sitting with your back to the direction of travel) next to the mermaid was available, so I moved there.

It was a new experience for me because the direction of G-force is opposite during take-off and landing. I sit with my back to the direction of travel only on trains.

I fart a lot. I farted a lot on my last round-the-world trip. It’s annoying for mermaids, but it’s my decision whether I fart or not, so there’s nothing I can do about it. On the plane to Kenya, it’s not just me, everyone farts. It smells all over the place. It can’t be helped. *

*This article was written in September 2017, but as of March 2023, my physical condition has improved and I do not fart as much. My physical condition has improved since I started taking Bacture. It’s more about etiquette. My apologies… m(_ _)m

A local man who sat next to me and diagonally opposite me spoke to me and gave me his business card. He asked me if I wanted to have sushi with him because he had a Japanese friend in Kenya, so I gave him my email address and he said he would email me later, and we parted, but something was fishy so I decided to ignore him.

In Kotaro Sawaki’s “Midnight Express”, his own backpacking travelogue, he wrote that the skies over the Middle East are as blue as they can get, which was really true when I looked at the view from the window. I would like to visit the Middle East one day. Looking at the ground, there were a number of square plants like reservoirs on the sandy ground. They must be quite large, as they are so clearly visible from the sky above. And straight lines like pipes extending from them. I don’t know if these are roads or not, but they are certainly man-made.

Jomo Kenyatta International Airport

We arrived in Kenya and a hire car was waiting to take us to our hotel, arranged by Mermaid. As I stepped off the plane’s ramp and into the open air, there was little humidity and I took a deep breath. It is my favourite air. The temperature is like autumn in Japan. After completing immigration formalities and exchanging foreign currency, the rate of US $101 was not bad and I exchanged $250. The unit of exchange is the Kenyan shilling, which is the same as the yen and easy to understand. The view from inside the hire car is that all the signs are in English. It is a pity that they are not in the local language.

Hotel security is high, boots are opened and checked before entering the gate, and the bottom of the car is also checked with a metal detector. 2,000 shillings was paid to the driver and we got out. The security is as thorough as at an airport, where all luggage is scanned with X-rays, but it’s that much safer inside (and that much less secure outside). We went into our respective rooms and finished day 2.