5.45 alarm. The things we do. Checked my phone, and I was unsuccessful getting a business class upgrade. So not the best start to the day. I had a shower, some breakfast, and caught an Uber to the airport.

Kaoru had flown to Japan last Friday (9th) and has been with her parents. I’ve been busy with work for the last week. Yesterday was supposed to be an unwind day but lots of problems left me quite stressed – I didn’t even get my suitcase out of the cupboard until after 6.00 last night. But now it was time to focus on some holidaying.

I bumped in to Brett and Naomi at the airport. By coincidence they were off to Vietnam with some friends of theirs on the same day. They were flying a bit later but Brylie drove them to the airport on her way to work so they just got in early and had breakfast there. Since I didn’t have lounge access (flying cattle class and all) I joined them, and had a brekky beer, while waiting for boarding the plane.

We took off a little late – it was probably about 10.00am by the time wheels lifted off. I had managed to sweet talk my way to an exit row so at least I had some extra legroom. I watched a movie, and a few TV shows, had a couple of meals, and tried to sleep as much as I could, and we finally landed about 7.00pm local time (8.00pm Melbourne time). I power-walked off the plane to immigration, passing several people on the way. Once in that line, within a few minutes it had grown exponentially, so I was certainly glad I made the effort. After immigration I collected my suitcase (which had been taken off the carousel already) and waited in the customs line. Then some more power walking, and I made the 7.53 Narita Express train with 3 minutes to spare. If I had missed that I would have had to catch the bus, which is slower, and the next Narita Express isn’t for another hour.

I met Kaoru at Tokyo station, where we walked to the other end (quite a long way – about 15 minutes). It was then about a 40 minute train trip to Seijogakuen-mae. We got off the train and started working out where the lift was, when Yukuri came up to us! She was actually on the same train as us, coming home from work. So we headed up out of the station, where Kenichi was waiting in the car. We then waited another 10 minutes or so, for Minami to get back from school, and the 5 of us drove home. This was now about 10.00pm local time.

Once at the house we met Kozue and went inside. I had never been to this house before, and it was beautiful. We had some food and beer and chatted for a bit, and then I had a bath and called it a night. Kozue and Kenichi gave us their room, which had 2 massive single beds in it, so larger than king size! It had been a long day so I wasn’t up for long.