0761–17 Sep 2025 ) Arrivederci, Italia!
At 5:00, I woke up. Today marked the final day in Italy. Dressed roughly and organised my baggage again. My suitcase weighed nearly 23kg. I might need to rearrange it at the airport. Just in case, I checked out the hostel at 6:15 and headed to Milano Centrale railway station. Thanks to yesterday’s preliminary inspection, I found the platform easily. Grabbing a panini with caprese at a bakery in front of the ticket gate, I boarded Malpensa Express.
I arrived at Milan Malpensa Airport. Before dropping off my check-in luggage, I wanted to wrap my duffel bag. Because the person ahead of me in the queue brought several suitcases, my waiting time was longer. However, my turn finished soon. Next, I joined the queue for the baggage drop counter. I brought the suitcase and the wrapped duffel bag. The suitcase weighed 400g over the luggage allowance, and the wrapped bag was 10.8kg. Both of them were allowed to bring on the aeroplane a total of 34.2kg.
Passing through the security check and the passport control easily, I spent the remaining time in front of the boarding gate. Even though I had queued for the loo for a while, my group was still not allowed to board after returning from the bathroom. I ended up boarding on the estimated departure time, and the aeroplane took off with a 30-minute delay. Before take-off, a baby in the seat in front was crying, and it was utter chaos. A cosmetic advert that played during the pre-takeoff video, where Shohei Ohtani, a Japanese baseball player, winked, really cracked me up.
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Meeting my expectations, the Taiwanese airline offered me Japanese movies that I had wanted to watch but couldn’t in the UK, and some Disney movies with a Japanese dubbed version. Since “Mufasa: The Lion King” didn’t have a Japanese dubbed option, I chose “Lilo & Stitch”. The voice actor for David, a boyfriend of Nani, Lilo’s sister, is my favourite member of Travis Japan. As mentioned in yesterday’s story, TJ is one of my favourite boy groups. Owing to not having watched its animation, I got the first chance to see the world of Stitch. Even if the plot was predictable, it was enjoyable for adults too.
Between European chicken and mapo tofu, I selected the latter for the first flight meal. The cabin crew introduced it contained pork, but there was hardly meat. What a shame. After lunch, I watched “1ST KISS”, a Japanese film that was released this winter. One of the members of SixTONES, another one of my favourite groups, appeared as the husband of the main character. As I expected, I cried a lot. It was a relief that the cabin was dark after the lights were turned off.
Upon the movie, I tried to slumber but couldn’t settle easily. Even if I managed to doze off, it was only for about an hour. Given tomorrow’s schedule, it would be better not to feel sleepy tomorrow night. Therefore, I threw myself into playing games without a care. I played Tetris, UNO and Solitaire. However, the one I dedicated to was 2048. I like these basic games best.
The second flight meal was seafood noodles with prawns. It was so so. The kiwi fruit was somehow unpalatable. Playing 2048 single-mindedly, the landing video began to play. Then, I got sleepy. Please wait a few more hours because I decided to sleep a lot on the flight to Japan.
