Finnair Upgrade Get!

Mrs Game Fugu and I flew from London to Nagoya via Helsinki with Finnair. Earlier in the year Finnair had offered discounted seats for visiting Asian destinations, and we managed to get return tickets for £420 each including all taxes. Not bad! It did make me worry about the quality of the economy seats and service though, especially after reading some horror stories about Finnair using old MD-11s for their long haul flights to the Far East which didn't have an in-flight entertainment system.

Fortunately the Helsinki-Nagoya leg was in a much more modern A340, and even more fortunately we received an upgrade due to overbooking. Despite all of the flying I have done in the past, this was the first time I have been upgraded for a long haul flight! We made the most of it, relaxing in the extended seats so that when we arrived in the morning at Centrair (Nagoya's airport) we were ready to enjoy the first day of our holiday.

I would be happy to fly Finnair again in the future!

Japan 2008 Holiday

On an early October morning Mrs Game Fugu and I were finally able to leave the apartment for our annual holiday in Japan. Ever since returning to the UK from teaching on the JET programme in Hiroshima, I have been able to go back once a year to see friends still out there and visit some new places. This year the plan was to visit Osaka, Nagoya and Nara.

When I have spoken with friends in the past about going to Japan, their first reaction is almost always "Wow, it must be really expensive." I always responded by saying it was much cheaper than people believe - good restaurants and izakaya were affordable, and hotels were less expensive than in the UK. However, I cannot say this any more! When we changed our £ into ¥ (Yen) last month, the exchange rate was £1 to ¥196. With the credit crunch and threat of recession in the UK, this has fallen to ¥146. Now I agree, it is expensive to have a holiday in Japan!

Getting Fit With Fugu

I had the opportunity to try Wii Fit for the first time when I friend brought it over earlier today. It was amazing how sensitive it was. When you first attach a Mii to the game, you go through a series of balance tests to determine a Fitness Age. For me it gave an age of 27, which was exactly correct! It also said I was a little underweight, but what do you expect when I am full of small plastic balls?!?

The games we played were good fun (especially heading balls and a ski slalom game, though I wasn't very good at it), but I think it would be too much of a fad for me to get it and play it enough. Too lazy to exercise...

My friend also brought Big Beach Sports for the Wii. Trust the 1 * reviews.