Konnichiwa, Japan

And we are off to Japan.

This is a trip we have been talking about for more than five years but it has taken us this long to save enough to make it happen.

We have two weeks in Japan covering Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima and this will be the first big overseas trip for the children. We did Fiji a couple of years ago but that was a ‘flop and drop’ holiday as opposed to the more full-on trip we are undertaking now.

A note and an apology in advance: If there are errors in these posts that is because they are being written from my phone. The socket adapter I bought only accepts two-prong plugs. Three-prong plugs, like my laptop and the power board I packed, have been rendered useless. Sigh.

Back to the trip… The airport process was relatively painless. We drove in and parked at mum and dad’s place while they are overseas themselves before catching our pre-ordered Uber to the airport. As school holidays were imminent there were people EVERYWHERE. We waited to check in about an hour before offloading our luggage and getting through security. Emily was not impressed when asked to remover her Doc Martins before going through the scanner.

Our chariot awaits…

Our plane left on time but, alas, the first issue of the trip - our plane had been switched out for one that did not have entertainment screens. Luckily, we had packed the kids’ iPads so we could access the entertainment systems via wifi or it would have been a very long flight indeed.

We flew Philippines Airlines which meant a quick two-hour layover in Manila before moving onto Tokyo. Both our flights departed and arrived on time but it was very late by the time we finally landed in Japan. I’ve never Aiden eat such exotic foods! Usually we can’t get him to eat anything but nuggets, pies and sauce. On the plane he ate beef casserole and a chicken tandoori sandwich. I fear he may have been replaced with an imposter.

Someone who may or may not be Aiden eating a tandoori chicken sandwich he described as “pretty good”.

Two things happened we arrived in Tokyo:

1-Kairi vomited as we were exiting the plane. Reasons why remain unclear.

2-Aiden needed to use a bathroom in the airport. He was thoroughly impressed with the cleanliness of the toilets and left an “excellent” rating on the touch screen as he exited.

Emily and Aiden chilling at Manila airport.

We got through customs with relative ease although we did have to fill our forms for Teneille, Emily, Aiden and Kairi. This was despite me filling all of this information out online before arrival. Sigh, again.

We found our driver thanks to his handy photo guide that walked us through Haneda Airport and took the 20-minute drive to our apartment for the next several nights.

We checked in and let everyone crash out given how late it was. We will begin exploring Tokyo tomorrow. A boring blog post to open the trip, I know, but transit days usually are. The life of a traveller isn’t all glamour.