The potential of BA going on strike over the festive period wasn’t the end of my troubles as a day after it was ruled to be illegal there was the heavy snow in Europe which really buggered up the Eurostar schedules. Last Christmas I stopped off in Paris for a day before taking the Eurostar home so this year I thought I’d do similar and go to Brussels and Bruges in Belgium for a day trip en-route to England.

Having set my heart on this I then found out that I had to fly into Heathrow first and then go on to Brussels that evening (22nd December) with a day return trip to Bruges planned the following day before taking the Eurostar to London and another train, already booked cheaply on-line, from there to Market Harborough where my parents live.

Eurostar was out of action completely between December 19th to the 21st and with official announcements not being made until a few hours before I left my flat in Tokyo I had to make a quick decision. I had been umming and ahhing over the decision all day and night but finally I decided to not take the risk as I couldn’t afford (the time) to get the Eurostar back from Brussels any later than I had planned as my booking was in the evening of the 23rd and I didn’t want to spend a night in the station. Consequently I got back home in the evening on the 22nd after a very very long day. However, this still wasn’t to be the end of my troubles for this Christmas break from Japan!