Emperor, empress leave for Queen Elizabeth's funeral

Wishing the imperial couple a safe journey.

My native America got rid of royals a couple of centuries ago, but I've lived in Japan for over 30 years, and their activities interest me. (Read a funny book a long while back in which the British Royal Family merged with the Disney Corporation.)

Safe travels!

They won’t need to queue for 25 hours to see the Queen lying in state.

Hopefully they’ll have a safe flight and remember to bring me some Turkish delights and Mars bars back!

The reason why Japanese emperors do not traditionally attend funerals is that in Shintoism, funerals are considered unclean. Since the emperor’s primary job is to do imperial rituals and pray for the well-being of his subjects, he must stay clean and avoid anything unclean. And that’s the reason some traditionalists are opposing the imperial couple’s visit to Britain.

Hopefully the protocol gives them an individual ride in limousines that are outstanding enough to fit their rank of noblesse. It’s an absolute and unforgivable no-go to put them into such a coach bus together with all those other much lower ranked guests. They are even higher in rank than the deceased queen and it’s therefore more than generous that they show up and take part at those funeral activities.

@Sven

LOL - that's funny.

Worthy of a "Private Eye" piece.

The schedule of arrival and departure is most useful in countering jet lag although I am sure that their waking period will be around 3am on Sunday morning.

Safe travels to them. They'll get to skip the eons-long queue of visiting The Queen currently lying in state. Westminster is absolute chaos right now; I've never seen such a queue.

Wishing the Imperial Family a safe journey…but IMO it is an unwarranted expense as well as the chance of an infection that could have a less than positive effect! The PM Kishida should make the trip caring condolences from the Imperial Family!

They'll get to skip the eons-long queue of visiting The Queen currently lying in state. 

According to the BBC, there are three queues: the day-long queue for the hoi polloi, a fast-track queue for VIPs (the rich and famous), and a visit-any-time-you-like non-queue for MPs and their guests (to whom normal rules don’t apply).

show us some photos of inside the plane!

Why @Sanji? Photos are available online. It's one of 2 (both of which will have gone on this trip) 777-300ERs maintained by the SDF for official Government business. All images available online from when they were first purchased and fitted. ANA maintain them. They were replacements for two 747-400s not that long ago.

Hopefully there is no mass global monarchy ending terror attack planned. That would be truly horrible for everyone on earth.

@cleo: you're better than making comments like that. You are one of the few voices of reason on this website over the years. I am not one. Hence my high opinion of you.

@theResident

? What’s reason got to do with it? I merely repeated what the BBC is reporting.

@cleo: you're better than making comments like that

She made a factual statement as far as I can see.

Hoi polloi, plebs, riff-raff, the great unwashed, proles…

Wear the badge with pride if you support this kind of thing.

It's going to be bad news for the Emperor and his wife - due to security concerns, the number of individual cars is being severely limited, so unfortunately they're going to have to be bussed-in to the funeral on Monday. Apparently the meeting point for the coach will be the Royal Chelsea Pensioners Hospital - have your tickets ready !

They are vastly more welcome than some of the unsavoury characters apparently turning up.

Good luck to the imperial couple, at least they can remove their restrictive masks in a progressive country like England.