So, here I am again in the lounge at Narita airport. I spend far too much of my life in places like this and in this lounge particularly. Still, at least I’ve got access to the lounge. The thing I find about having to fly economy but having status is that access to the business lounge does reduce the stress of travel. It’s not the free drinks and snacks (my diet goes out of the window when I fly anyway so the snacks aren’t good for me) but the more comfortable chairs are nice. What’s nicest though is that they’re much quieter than waiting in the general concourse. Plus they usually have free WiFi. The one here wants my name and email address, but doesn’t check it so they get a fake one.

I was up about ten minutes before my alarm this morning so made an earlier train. The first Skyliner of the day, actually. That is only about fifteen minutes before the second one. I found out why when I got to Narita and had to wait in a queue for Security. Not unusual, but this queue was for the security check to open at all (it opened at 07:30 and I was in the queue at 07:25). I must remember that for future early flights. Not much point getting here before 07:20 at the earliest.

Security and immigration (sic – it’s really emigration but they still call it immigration) were as easy as they ever are in these days of security theatre and then I headed here to the lounge. There were only a couple of people here ahead of me and they were already ensconced in their seats with coffees or whatever. Just as I had dropped my bags by a seat with power nearby and was heading towards the coffee machines, one of them starting spurting water onto the floor from two nozzles in a steady stream. I was nowhere near. There were no staff in sight so I popped out to the reception desk to let them know about this. Unfortunately the English of the woman on the desk wasn’t good enough to understand, nor was my Japanese good enough at this time of the morning, so I just had to tell her there was a serious problem and to please come and see.

They got it sorted out without too much trouble. I’m just glad I wasn’t standing in front of the machine when it started spurting out.

Next stop, Frankfurt, then Tuebingen via Stuttgart on the train.