one With only a few days remaining, we made our way to the physical shop after ordering it a few times on uber eats. It is a greek yoghurt bowl, but it...

Sometimes heroes really do wear white hats

This is the last installment in our Japan2025 blog post series, at least as told as a post about recent events. Last we spoke, we’d boarded from Haneda for our flight back to Sydney. It was late in the afternoon, which did give us half a day in Japan to explore a few more places before we left. Red eye flights are great because you don’t waste a day of your leave, and you can just sleep on the plane, right? Right? Wellll… not quite! I can see the wisdom from a pseudo-rational perspective, but it presupposes a very important detail: that one can sleep on planes. Clara and I don’t (generally) book red eye flights if we can avoid it, because neither of sleep well in pressurised metal tubes. Even when I was a privileged teenager where my old man’s company would fly us business class everywhere, those fold-down beds were an improvement but still didn’t help much. At best, I was more comfortable while I peered into my eye mask for hours. That’s not to say I felt a tinge of envy at my childhood self as I was leaning back in my economy seat on this ten hour flight! We booked the red eye this trip after deciding we’d let the (a) money and (2) airline decide for us. The flights this time were less than a third what we paid the last couple of times, which is useful when you have an offset mortgage and several large impending expenses to worry about! The trick was to use the calendar on the Japan Airlines site and note that certain times of the day, and certain days of the week were less popular, and attracted cheaper fares. In this case, much cheaper. As I said in the previous post, we’ve flew Japan Airlines on each of our Japan trips, save for our first trip when we went via Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific to go to Kansai directly. Which as an aside, if you’re planning your first Japan trip, I highly recommend going to Ōsaka first. It’s a beautiful, fun, and far more laid back city; Kansai residents have a reputation around Japan for being easier going, funny, and obsessed with food. Even when I said Tōkyō is more approachable than I think people expect, I appreciated that Ōsaka was a gentler introduction to Japan for first-timers back in 2018. It’s also very close to Kyōto and Nara, which as tourists you’ll definitely want to see. And heck, if you do want to go to Tōkyō, because it’s amazing, it’s a Nozomi Shinkansen train away. But I digress. Flying Japan Airlines out of Japan also gives you the opportunity to have Japanese-prepared in-flight food, which is always good. I know right, in-flight food, good!? Before being served, your flight attendant gives you a meal card showing the exact ingredients and information about who prepared it. I still glitched and ordered the Western option because I wanted some fresh salad—even though both options clearly had it—but it was exceedingly good for airline food. Once food service was finished, the attendants went up and down the isles offering decaf coffee and tea, of which I chose the former. It was… good!? Decaf coffee gets a bad rap from the same dull people who dismiss non-alcoholic cider or beer as a “waste of time”, but sitting there with a book and an evening coffee that will let me sleep was a delight. I may have asked for a second cup later, which they were only too happy to provide. A short time later they dimmed the lights, and I took up the pillows, ear plugs, and eye mask, and cosplayed again as someone who can sleep well on planes. I evidently must have dozed off eventually, because I had the same terrifying dream I always have of being stuck at a hotel without enough bags to pack, and worrying about missing flights. I was also awakened by the cabin lights coming on and more drinks being served as we were an hour before landing. I love using that in-flight map thing on the seat-mounted screen. Living in Australia as someone who likes to travel can be a pain on account of floating in the middle of nowhere, but if Asia is your favourite place in the world, being in about the same timezone does make certain destinations easier! We landed in Sydney, and I’ll admit this was the moment the twang of sadness first hit. We’ve been lucky enough to go to Japan half a dozen times in the last decade, but it’s always such a novelty and joy. Even if you’re painfully boring people like us who think nightlife is green tea at a late-night café writing blog posts and playing Minecraft, Japan is such a wonderful place to travel around. It’s also where we spend leave, so we’re also getting a break from the daily grind. We went through immigration and Australia’s strict quarantine process (sorry remaining FamilyMart food, in the bin you go), then went to get the airport train. Kinda. Those of you who’ve travelled to Sydney and have a bit more time on your hands might be aware of what we dub the Sneaky Shortcut. Sydney thankfully has airport trains (looking at you Melbourne), but the entry fees for two people are more than $40. You can take a bus, but they’re a miserable experience with lots of luggage. There’s also a third option for the transit-oriented traveller. If you leave the airport terminal and go to the long-term parking, on level one (level two in the real world, but Australians are weird and call the first floor Ground, even when it isn’t), there’s a small sign indicating a cycleway. This takes you to a long, narrow overpass that crosses the parking area, and takes you out to Wolli Creek where… there’s a local station on the same airport line that doesn’t make taking a cab look affordable! It’s about a half hour walk, but we’ve found it’s quite pleasent when you need to stretch your legs after a long flight. And save for a small walk alongside a Stroad, you’re walking through parkway through much of it. You get to hear some Australian birds, look at some Australian fish, and collect smiles from the early morning joggers. We boarded the train at Wolli Creek, made it to Central station, then got the new Metro to Chatswood to have our traditional “Welcome Home” hotcakes from Ray’s Place, our favourite cafe on the North Shore. Our trains might not be as punctual as Japan, but at least they’re comfy and have nice views of their own :). I’ve got a bunch of follow-up posts, including more detail about some of the HARD·OFF second-hand stores we went to, and I might talk more about some of the museums and art we saw in separate posts in the coming days. But as far as the daily updates go, that’s a wrap. Thanks again to all of you for your feedback. My Melbourne 2024 trip was kind of a daily travel blog series, but this was the first time I got up each morning and thought I’d share what we did, ate, and saw. While my intention wasn’t to do this for Japan this time, it ended up being a lot of fun. As much as I love international travel, this has also highlighted for me that there’s so much to see and do locally as well that I should talk about. I know the majority of you are in Europe and North America, so maybe some exploring around Australia might be fun or interesting too. I can’t promise it’ll have as many ancient Japanese palaces or second-hand stores that have hundreds of camera bodies and SCSI cables, but having spent most of my formative years overseas, I’m still learning interesting stuff about my re-adopted home again as well. 👋 By Ruben Schade in Sydney, 2025-05-10.

The Causes of 3am Catastrophising

Maybe the first of who knows how many.