The journey home

Today's post is probably a bit prosaic as we head home, but here is a brief outline: 

Early Morning

I woke up at 3.30pm and get to writing the blog from last Sunday in Tromsø. Drew wakes up at 5am and I make us a cup of English Breakfast tea, and later an Earl Grey tea, each. Drew reviews the blog post and adds his elements to it and it gets published just after 6am

Ablutions start at 6.30am...

Breakfast

The idea of late breakfasts at the weekend seems rather quaint to me. At home my breakfasts on weekends tend to be two or three hours before my weekday time of 6.30!! But here it is 7.30am, so that's when we have it.

I start with the same things I've had for the last three days. A chia pudding and yogurt with nuts, seeds and raisins.

Drew decides to repeat yesterday's delights with dark bacon and dark mushrooms plus a potato or two.

I then head over for my last plate of pickled herring, as usual in Sweden, this is two types - peppercorn and mustard, this is accompanied by pickled vegetables - today this included pickled beetroot, pickled radish, pickled cheery tomatoes, pickled gherkins and pickled things I don't recognise (Google when I use search on the photo suggested they may be a fake brain prop, I can see why they suggest that, but I'm sure they aren't) 

I also have a Knäckebröd and Rågbröd

to mop up the pickling juice.

Drew has some white bread with two eggs, so the yolk can soak into the bread.

Back to the room

We go back to the room at 7.55am and I write a second blog post about our journey from Tromsø to Kiruna. This involves lots of happy memories and some rambling about our reading/TV watching habits. 

With that drafted I do my weekly check on our stocks and shares, while Drew is checking the blog post. I then post it.

We pack and check we have everything we need for the journey home. 

Arlanda Express

We check out from the hotel by the app at 11.20am and drop our keys at the key drop point as we walk up from the room and out of the hotel. I reckon we'll be back at this, our happy place. 

From our hotel room we could see the Arlanda Express on its platform, so it takes us less than ten minutes to walk from the hotel to the train. 

Which leaves at 11.35am and arrives at Terminal 5, our terminal, at 11.50am, exactly 3 hours before our departure.

We get into a very friendly lift

which says "Hello, I just want to say thanks for taking the lift." This sounds so much like the lifts from Zaphod Beeblebrox's ship, The Heart of Gold, in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, that I wonder if a fan works for the lift company. This lift only says it in text, so at least we don't have the synthasised voice of the Heart of Gold's lifts.

Arlanda Airport

We make our way to a self-check in machine 

and then to the luggage drop. We have completed this and the security - fast track was quiet this morning by 12.10pm.

So, it was time to head to the SAS lounge.

We settled in to the lounge. I had a coffee and sparkling water and Drew Pepsi Max, then I had a delightful minty pea soup which was served with croutons and crusty bread to eat with it. 

Drew explores the airport and returns and starts to read his novel while I do some holiday accounting. I've not had a chance since we left Kiruna on Wednesday.

We leave the lounge at 2.15pm to go through passport control. This isn't as smooth as the earlier queues, it takes 10 minutes to go through. So we are through passport control by 2.25pm, then have to walk ten gates to our one where we board and settle into our row 4 seats. 

On the plane

We take-off at 2.55pm (1.55pm UK time) right on time. Lunch is served about thirty minutes later. It is a lovely fresh chicken dish with tabbouleh.

Drew is not as comfortable as me on the flight. He is sat beside a large muscley guy who apologised at the end of the flight for the amount of space he took up. [Co-pilot's note: I, dear readers, was in fear of my life!!! He was massive, his arms were the size of my waist. Some people might think that him falling asleep was a positive, not me, dear readers, because he seemingly started to have night terrors, one sudden move from him and I'd be crushed, flattened, as dead as a Norwegian blue parrot.]

Drew says at one point he had stereo snoring with me on one side and the large fella on the other. 

Heathrow

We landed at 4.18pm BST and disembarked at 4.30pm. Using the e-gates got us through passport control quickly and we arrived at the luggage belt at 4.40pm. My case arrives at 4.48pm and Drew's at 4.50pm.

We take the familiar path through Terminal 2 and use the escalators to get to the Bus Station as the lifts are very full.

We arrive in the Black Sheep Coffee shop at 5.15pm; 1 hour 15 minutes before the coach we are travelling on.

At least here the Americano and the Latte are the same size, I wonder, to myself, if there are Europeans here worrying that their coffee is to large??

National Express

The NX202 leaves at 6.30pm with our cases safely packed under the bus. It wasn't my imagination, the seats are closer together on National Express buses than the VY buses in Norway. Perhaps something for feedback when we get the survey question. As it happens this coach is not full, so it feels very spacious.

We have a peaceful drive stopping at Bristol and Newport on the way. We arrive in Cardiff at 10pm. We don't order the taxi until we get our luggage, which on reflection was a mistake. But I'm not used to using taxis in Cardiff, but as the last 132 leaves at 10pm, it was the only sensible option.

We get home at 11pm and decide to leave clothes sorting and washing until the morning. We get to bed by 11.25pm.

Dinner the night before we travel

It is now 14 years since we began the tradition of eating out the night before we travel. 

As I said in my blog post back then:

For us holidays always start the night before, rather than having pots and pans to wash and dry, we go out for a meal.

For the third year in a row we made our booking in Matsudai Ramen, the delightful restaurant recommended by Jay Rayner.

What I love about Matsudai Ramen, as well as the gorgeous ramen is the regular variation of ramen styles that they have on their menu. This is eating as education.

Travelling to Matsudai Ramen 

 

The bus from Tongwynlais to Cardiff only takes 20 to 30 minutes, as long as the traffic isn't bad, so with our meal booked for 5pm we caught the 132 in Tongwynlais at 3.52pm.

We arrived in the City Centre at 4.20pm to the tremendously loud noise of Fontaines D.C. a band I'd never heard of, who were performing at Cardiff Castle this evening, the castle being right in the centre of the city, near where the 132 stops.

We walked from Greyfriars Road, down Westgate Street and then down the side of the river. What appeared to be a regimented band of seagulls were sailing like a flotilla up the River Taff:

The last time we had been along the river side we were with Robin and Liz Croft after a meal at the Vegetarian Food Studio nearby. At that time the buildings beside the old Brains Brewery were merely metal shells, they are now almost complete.

Matsudai Ramen 

 

We arrived at Matsuadai Ramen at 5pm and were seated in the same seats in which we were sat the last time we were here, last September! A pleasant coincidence

We choose three starters to share. The secret to eating here is to get your starters before ordering your Ramen - otherwise the soup can come before the starters.

We began with Cucumber tataki, we had had cucumber dishes here before, but never this particular take. It was made of large chunks of cucumber with whipped tofu and chilli crisp - the tofu and chilli have a great tanginess to the crunchy cucumber, a flavour explosion with every bite.

Our second starter was Karaage mushroom, these triple-fried oyster mushrooms with karaage (light Japanese curry) were also delicious. We've had them many times before, but love them again each time.
 

Our final starter (in the order they arrived) was Pork gyoza, a new dish on the menu here. It was a pork and vegatable gyoza with a soy dipping sauce, this traditional Japanese dish is done very well here, with soft wrap and a tangy filling.

For his main Drew had the traditional Shoyu ramen, this golden chicken chintan and seafood dashi double-soup with shoyu tare, wavy noodles, chiyu, pork shoulder chashu, menma, nori and seasoned egg, is the flavour that attracted us to the restaurant the first time we eat here. Since last year we have tried traditional Ramen in Japan itself, during our visit to Tokyo, and the one here is as good as that high quality location. Drew really enjoyed it.

I opted for a new item on the menu, the Iekei-inspired tonkotsu-shoyu ramen. This Yokohama-style ramen has a rich, salty pork and chicken bone soup with iekei shoyu tare, chiyu, iekei-inspired noodles, pork belly chashu, spinach, nori and seasoned egg. This new ramen flavour was right up my street as far as flavour goes. I really loved the chicken bone and pork fat broth, apologies to vegetarian friends! The vegetables and meat with infused with the delicious taste of the broth.

The restaurant explains more about the background to this delightful dish here. 

I opted for the rice and extra nori, recommended with the Yokohama ramen, Drew decided not to miss out and had rice and extra nori too, only my version is photoed.

There was none of my juicy, slightly fatty, ramen left - this meant we could see the logo at the bottom of the bowl. Note the dai of Matsuadai being used to form the Welsh expression Da Iawn - very good - and it truly is just that here!

Back Home

We left Cardiff at 7pm and were home by 7.30pm. We checked everything was ready for the off tomorrow and got to bed at 10pm, so we can be up and fresh ready for the morning.