Japan 2025, July 27

This was going to be a bit of a wasted day since the hotel check-out was 11am and the flight wasn't until 4pm. Thanks to efficient and regular trains, I could be at the airport in under an hour.

This is the usual travel trade off between arriving in Melbourne late at night with no public transport (except Friday or Saturday night) or arriving during the day. The corresponding departure time depends on where you're travelling from and how long the flight is, and the time zone changes involved. Sadly it often means travelling through the night so you can arrive during the day - exhausted with no sleep.

Another bad part that I couldn't avoid was another 3-4 hours waiting at Hong Kong late at night for the connecting flight. Trying to stay awake until you board your flight is never fun.

Since I had nothing to do for the day except sit around I managed my longest run at 12.5 kilometres. Even with a small bit of cloud cover it was still challenging most of time. Back to the hotel and checkout was before 11am, but the flight wasn't until 4pm.

I was thinking of getting some basic headphones so I could watch something on my laptop at the airport, so decided to checkout and leave my luggage at the hotel. Since Akihabara was only a 15 minute trip away I planned a quick visit to there and back to buy some headphones and waste a bit of time.

One of the station exits comes out at Yodobashi Camera so I spent my time in there, listening to their Akiharaba store melody on repeat. There was quite a range of in-ear wired headphones to choose from, but I didn't need anything special so settled for a $10 pair. The demonstration pair looked purple, but it turned out to be a lot more pink that I was hoping for.

On another level was computers, video games, and related merchandise. They had a range of things from Nintendo, Pokemon, Sega, and Square, some of the items I'd seen at their specialty stores. The amount of items was much less, but you could have easily done most of your shopping across all the brands just here, with a lot less hassle.

Then I was back to the hotel to pick up my suitcase and walk about one kilometre to the station which goes direct to Haneda airport, in about an hour. There was almost no shade along the way so I was sweating a lot thanks to wearing a backpack.

The train to the airport was surprisingly full but I managed a seat for most of the trip. I could barely get off the train at the international terminal as most people were staying on for the domestic terminal. I got to the departure area just before the 3 hour bag drop time was due to open, so didn't have to wait long for the queue to open. The line moved a bit slow thanks to a few people with a large pile of luggage, but not too bad. The security line was also good enough, then I was through to the departure gates. The food options were a bit limited, but I did manage to find a great Family Mart branded vending machine with some food snacks.

By the time I walked down to my gate I still had a bit over an hour until boarding was due to commence. With 4 GB still left on my mobile data account I created a mobile hotspot and watched some Twitch for a while. Normally I have no energy at the airport and spend the whole time resting, but it was only 3pm so I wasn't too tired yet. Watching Twitch for 30 minutes used surprisingly little data, only 300 MB.

The first flight was 4 hours 40 minutes and I had the front row of premium economy next to the window. When I booked it there was nobody seated next to me, but I didn't expect that would remain, and I think the whole section was full in the end

The boarding process was a little strange as we had to get on a bus and drive out onto the runway to the plane. The overhead cabins in premium economy were also strange, those roller suitcases everyone loves weren't fitting long ways, so had to be put in width ways. I'm guessing the same problem occurred down in economy, as they had lots of people bring their suitcases up into business class.

After we took off we got a meal served after about an hour. The options were fish with rice or lamb with vegetables. I asked for fish but somehow got lamb instead. The fish came with a good serving of rice on the side which would have been good, but the vegetables with lamb had some lentils, so was still alright. We must have sat in front of our trays for close to an hour before they finally came back and collected them. I got a little bit of rest in the first half of the flight but the final hour really seemed to drag on.

We arrived approximately on time, which didn't matter to me as I had four hours to waste. At the transfer gate it was another cycle of passport, boarding pass, and bag check, but this time I had no problems with my passport thankfully.

The Hong Kong international airport is huge but has surprisingly few food and drink options, and no vending machines at all. After getting on a shuttle train towards my gate I found a Hungry Jack's open for some fries, then had to walk close to ten minutes to find a place selling drinks. My gate was at the very end of one wing, so it was a very long walk back and forth, that you wouldn't want to repeat more than once.

The closest travelator was making a constant beeping sound every few seconds, which was going to make me go crazy, so I had to move as far away as possible. By the time I was ready to sit down I still had about two hours to wait for boarding to commence near midnight Hong Kong time, or 1am Japan time.

My computer still had 75% battery charge remaining and I had the Optus $5 daily roaming for the day, so I could watch some more Twitch to pass the time. I had no plug for the Hong Kong power points, so my battery would have to last. I watched Twitch until about 11pm, but it was hard to enjoy it while being tired and watching the clock.

Public transport = 1019 yen

Steps = 15,800 with 12.5 kilometres running (at Haneda airport)

Steps = 20,346 (at Hong Kong airport)