December 30, 2012 Greece day 1

Long story behind, as the main purpose of this travel is to visit my dearest friend Christina in Greece.

She's nice, cool, hot, beautiful, and powerful.

We share the fun as women, and she cheers me up when I'm down.

She used to visit Japan as she is much interested in Japan, and I regret not going to her wedding in her hometown several years ago while I wanted to go.

And the time has come. It's my turn to visit her. I can fly!

People in Japan may know that it's not easy, more like nearly impossible, for us to have holidays longer than a week.
And even if shorter, consecutive holidays are hard to take in general, which is not fun and rather tiring.
Still there's a few chances for us, such as midsummer and new year holidays.
So that's why I could plan this "long" travel.
And this is my first time going outside my country during new year holidays.
Some new year decorations were found at Narita airport.

This time our travel started with the Austrian Airlines,

Which amused me by its boarding pass. Let me know if you know this guy.

Before boarding I wanted to eat something but at the restaurant near the boarding gate almost everything was sold out.
Successfully I got the last onigiri (rice ball).

Now I can say that the in-flight meal by the Austrian Airlines is great. Oishii (delicious).

These are what I was given this time.

Welcome snack: pretzels and biscuits.

First meal, I chose beef.

Snack again, I could choose either peanuts or this chocolate cookie.

And second lunch, or early dinner.

It took 11 hours but thank god by these delicious meal and in-flight movies I could survive the long distance to Vienna, the first transit place.

The airport in Vienna was big, clean, and new.
Since most of the signs are written in German which I don't speak, I was a little afraid, but nothing scary happened.

The signs were simple and cute.

Stores and restaurants.

As I was sure that we were going to spend 1 night there on our way back, I didn't buy anything.
Actually I wanted to try this vending machine of the water bottle, but as I didn't have any coins unfortunately I couldn't.

It's blur as I was too thirsty....

And the next destination was, Munich!
Somehow no direct flight to Thessaloniki was available on that day!

No meal this time as it's just 1 hour short.
Also given a delicious biscuit.

The Munich international airport was clean and new with lots of restaurants.
But we had only 1 hour for connecting that I could take only a few pictures after shopping some stuff at the store.

And finally we fly to Thessaloniki!

4 hours flight by the Aegean Airlines.
In-flight meal was okay. I loved noodles with tomato sauce.
(You need to know that I basically love tomato flavor)

But I began to feel a little sick by the jet lag and the long flights... I took painkillers for my headache and slept in the plane.

No pictures here but we surely arrived at Thessaloniki International Airport.

Somehow our luggage never appeared and in the end they mysteriously came out from the different lane, but never mind, as now we are in Thessaloniki.

It seems there's a midnight bus to the center of the city hourly running, but as we didn't want to wait long and Christina told me that the taxi in Thessaloniki is cheap and nice, we took it to the hotel.

Yes, as she said the driver was nice and kind, I remember it cost 22 euros, not expensive.

30 minutes of our drive finished near the entrance of Capsis Hotel.

There was a construction of the metro in front of the hotel that we had to walk, but let's say that it was less than 1 minute.

Our hotel!! Finally!!

Even bath tub!! I can sink to wash away my stress and pain!

Over midnight there means over 7 a.m. in Japan.

We've done our first mission. Okay, let's rest. Good night!!