Although it was a bit while ago, I made a private trip to the United Kingdom. It was not the British Hills, not an English village, not a British-style cottage in Tochigi Prefecture, not any other “fake Britain” in Japan. It was the real England, where I had wanted to visit before I died. I visited London and Haworth, West Yorkshire. Both of those places were introduced in the Japanese manga Emma by Kaoru Mori, which was one of my favorite comics I’d ever read.
I bought an air ticket to London via Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Sri Lankan Airlines because it was the cheapest route. A transit in Sri Lanka was not bad, as I expected to get some Ayurvedic medicines or goods at Colombo Airport.
It snowed heavily in the Tokyo area when the plane departed from Narita Airport. Some flights were canceled, and the flight to Colombo I was on board was about to be affected, but it managed to leave Narita. The plane arrived at Bandaranaike International Airport after flying for almost ten hours.
The big Buddha statue greeted us. Yes, Sri Lanka is a Buddhist country, and various kinds of golden Buddhas were sold at many souvenir shops there.
There was a chemist inside, but it was selling mainly “normal” pills and not so many Ayurvedic medicines as I expected. All I bought was this supplement, which cost just 3 USD.
I had to wait inside the airport building for about six and a half hours for the next flight to London. There was a free WiFi hotspot, but it was time-limited and became not available after a certain time had passed. Not being able to kill time by browsing websites and using Facebook on my smartphone, I spent a long, boring moment until the boarding time for the flight to London.
It became 2.00 am, and the gate for the next flight was opened. An officer checked each passenger’s passport and boarding pass. In my turn, he took my passport, opened the picture page, and carefully checked whether the passport was real and that I was the real holder, looking over the picture page through a special magnifying glass and comparing the picture to my face many times. I passed the screening and can get on board. There seemed to be no other Japanese passengers.
The seat was a bit filthy, and the folding table was almost broken. I found the Ayurvedic tea set in the in-flight duty-free catalog and ordered it from the nearest flight attendant. He accepted, but he didn’t bring it to me until the time just before the landing.
The plane flew over western India, Oman, Iran, and Turkey, crossed the Black Sea, and then passed over Bucharest, Budapest, Vienna, Nürnberg, Frankfurt, and Brussels before landing at Terminal 4 of London Heathrow Airport at 8.45 am.
At Heathrow Airport, we got off the plane, followed the signs, and walked to the immigration counters. An immigration officer, covering a hood on her head and looking like an immigrant from another Islamic country, asked me strictly, penetrating, and detailed questions that I hadn’t experienced in any immigration counter of other countries I had ever visited. She looked at my passport and immigration card and scanned my fingerprints. She pointed out that the “occupation” section of the immigration card was blank and asked what my occupation was. I answered that I was an engineer working for a telecommunications company.
She then asked, “Where are you planning to go?” I answered, “To Haworth, West Yorkshire.”
“Why Haworth?” she asked.
“Because I’m interested in the Brontë sisters, ” I replied.
“What books did you read?” she then asked.
“Wuthering Heights,” I answered, though actually, I hadn’t read it to the end.
“Any other one?” she asked.
“I had no time to read other books,” I managed to answer because I couldn’t call them up at once.
“How are you going to Yorkshire?”
“By train.”
After a few additional questions, she stamped a visa page in my passport and let me go. I was able to enter the United Kingdom.
I felt the UK had no characteristic smells. It was a good contrast that the mainland United States smells of cinnamon, Hawaii is fragrant with tropical fruits, Singapore has a spicy flavor, and China has an oily smell.
The first thing I did was to get a SIM card. Fortunately, there was a SIM card vending machine just to the left of the exit. I got EE’s SIM card for £30, put it into my iPhone 5, and turned it on. The activation process was a bit complicated, but I could do it.
Then I went to the Heathrow Express counter and had my BritRail Pass ticket activated. The ticket became valid four days from that date.
I caught the train to Terminal 3, then boarded the first-class coach of the Heathrow Express to Paddington. There were one-row seats on each window, and each seat had a socket for charging a mobile phone or a PC.
After a short while, the Heathrow Express arrived at Paddington. The station was gorgeous. You couldn’t find any station in Japan that was as decorative as that.
I tried to take the Tube at Paddington to go to King’s Cross/St. Pancras station, but the entrance of the Tube station was closed, and I couldn’t get inside. I didn’t know exactly why.
I changed my mind and caught a cab to King’s Cross station at the taxi stand near the Paddington Tube station. The cab drove a bit on Marylebone Road from Paddington. It cost £12 and a tip to get to King’s Cross.
The King’s Cross station is the terminus of trains departing for northern areas of England and Scotland, and is one of the important scenes of Emma as well. A dignified old building and a sophisticated modern one were standing together.
This station is also famous in Harry Potter’s novels. In the concourse, there was a Harry Potter souvenir shop and Platform 9 3/4, the starting point of the Hogwarts Express. Many people were queuing up in front of it to take some pictures. I didn’t understand how blessed it was as I’d never read Harry Potter.
I got on the train to Leeds. In the first-class coach, a complimentary light meal, a glass of orange juice, and a china cup of tea (and sometimes a can of beer!) were served to passengers. You wouldn’t have such wonderful service even in the Green Car of the Japanese Shinkansen.
The train ran for about two and a half hours and arrived at the Leeds terminus.
A local train going to Keighley came a short while later.
I arrived at Keighley after about a 30-minute train ride. This station is connected to the platform of the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, which operates diesel and steam trains to Oxenhope via Haworth every weekend.
It was Sunday, so a steam train and a diesel one ran every one hour in turn. Fortunately, I’ve had a steam locomotive engine!
The train ran very slowly for 20 minutes for several miles. It finally arrived at Haworth, where William Jones visited his beloved Emma working in Mölders’ manor house in Kaoru Mori’s Emma.
Haworth station was a tiny station with a small building featuring a cozy waiting room and a gift shop.
I left the station for the B&B where I was going to stay, carrying my luggage through Central Park and going up Main Street.
Heathfield Bed & Breakfast, where I stayed, was at the top of Main Street.
Opening the door of the B&B, a master, his wife, and a little dog greeted me. I talked with them for a while, having a cup of tea and a blueberry muffin in the reception room. They said they had been mobile priests working within a car in Australia and had returned to England several years earlier to start up this B&B in Haworth. They added that they had been interviewed by Keiko Igata, a Japanese magazine editor and one of the gurus of introducing British culture to Japanese people, and that their B&B had been featured in the travel magazine she published.
The guestroom was cozy and comfortable, with a window overlooking Main Street. There were some DVDs of Wuthering Heights and other Brontë-related films near the telly so that I could watch them.
The master told me that the Old White Lion Hotel near the B&B served a good meal and gave me a discount coupon.
This dinner was delicious. Not only that, but any other meals I ate in England were nice, from restaurant dinners to light meals at delis. I know people often say British food isn’t tasty. Still, I think it is, in fact, the comments from such people that are too fussy about food to accept different foods from what they eat daily.
To be continued to the next entry:
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