That humble looking street is my home. Well, not literally the street 
I'm not homeless ... 
So last month I had the opportunity to travel back to the UK.
It was the first time in over three years, so there were a lot of things that I had missed, such as the food, local countryside and it's wildlife, and of course family.
I usually don't fly direct unless I'm feeling particularly rich and this time was no different. My first flight from Narita to Abu Dhabi was about 13 hours and the flight path looked like this:
A little odd don't you think? I've no idea why the aircraft took such a strange detour, but I hadn't noticed anything at all until checking the flight path on the in-flight entertainment screen.
After landing at Abu Dhabi I had a couple of hours to do some duty free shopping (I can't help splurging on colognes whenever I travel) and also happened to find a strangely named chocolate bar!
I'm not sure why they gave the chocolate that name but my wife wasn't impressed with the stereotyping when I showed it to her. (Yes, I bought it, and no, she hasn't eaten it yet).
The next flight was from Abu Dhabi to Heathrow, London and took about 7 and half hours. I was pretty exhausted at this point but arriving at Heathrow knowing I was finally home gave me a boost of energy.
I was surprised at how clean and modern Heathrow airport looked which was quite different from my memory. I had landed at terminal 4 so perhaps the other terminals don't look as nice ... Or perhaps it has modernized?
Either way, after effortlessly passing through immigration's e-Passport gate, I was welcomed by more duty-free shops (yes, more colognes) and shelves full of British chocolates and souvenirs. I was home.
The first thing I did after leaving arrivals was to get an e-sim put onto my smartphone. It cost around 2-3000 yen (I forget the exact amount to be honest) and this gave me unlimited calls and texts and 60gb of data.
Next I made a pit-stop at Costa Coffee. I had no idea how popular this coffee chain had become, but it is everywhere now in the UK.
I bought a black coffee and something called Millionaire Shortbread; shortbread with a layer of caramel and topped with milk chocolate. It went down very well with the coffee while I tested out my e-sim.
Last but not least, I found my real welcome home;
A proper sandwich. Needless to say it didn't last long and was very satisfying.
I'll save the rest of my experiences for other updates to the blog (perhaps 1 or 2 more entries) over the next few weeks.
AH