Meticulous planning, months and months of making bookings, changing the itinerary, and apologising profusely to various Japanese establishments when changing and/or cancelling bookings has culminated in this, our fourth family trip to Japan.
 
Again, why go back? There is almost literally an entire world out there which we haven't explored, so why do we keep on going back to Japan? A country which, let’s be honest, we’ve seen our fair share of. When talking to many Japanese locals about our journeys, we’re often met with the admission that we’ve seen a great deal more of the country than some of the Japanese natives have seen in their 40, 50, 60 and in some cases 70 years of living there.

So why go back? Quite simply, because there is nowhere in the world I’d rather be.

Yes we could absolutely go somewhere else. Tasmania is on the list of destinations we’ll visit. As is New Zealand. USA and Canada are also high on the agenda, and we’ve always talked about going to Hawaii. And honestly, we’re always watching the flights to those places, but they never really give us the “itch”.
 
The what? The Japan itch, as I’ve come to know it, seems to infect us on average every 3 years. So far, the only cure we've come up with is to plan another journey.

Everything about this country captivates us, and makes for a hectic, tiring and at times simply insane holiday, but I wouldn't trade a single second of any of the previous 3 journeys for any other holiday experience.

I've always said, a visit to Japan for a couple of east coast Australians is about as close to being on another planet as I can imagine. The scenery, culture, food and activities is all completely alien to us, which is why we still get such a kick out of every visit, even though there is now a strange familiarity to it all. The other thing that never fails to amaze us is the gracious, welcoming and gentle people and customs that a visitor will encounter 1000 times a day just participating in everyday life.

You enter a store? To that shopkeeper, you're the most important person on the planet for the brief few moments that you're in there.

You ride a train? All staff, from the cleaning crews, to the platform conductors, to the drink trolley attendants, treat each and every passenger with utmost respect, including a bow when entering each train carriage, recognising that the customer is the reason that they are employed. In this culture, service and respect is key, and no matter how much I witness it, it amazes me.

It’s an unforgettable place to visit, and while we’re not expecting many “wow” experiences like we got on our first trip, there is enough in this fascinating country to keep us coming back again and again. Japan is a place I could visit for a few weeks every year, and still love it as much on the 100th trip as I did on the first.

But one is not made of money, so a couple of weeks every 3 years or so will have to do.

So onto today’s activities..or lack thereof.

The drive down to the airport was fairly painless, stupid Sydney traffic not withstanding. Graciously given lifts by both sets of parents saved us the uncomfortable and tiring journey on the Newcastle to Sydney train. An hour long wait for the baggage check queue to open was punctuated by the realisation that I am, in fact, a moron.

I’ve planned this holiday down to the most minute detail. All hotels were booked months ago. All tickets wherever possible have been booked and paid for. Many a spreadsheet has been drawn up planning each day’s activities. Everything was planned…

Baggage limits…. Obviously a fairly important consideration for anyone planning on catching a flight right? Yeah, you'd think so. It dawned on me, whilst waiting for the girls to return with refreshments while we waited for the baggage check-in to open, that while we were well within our baggage allowance, we were probably pushing the weight-per-bag quota, which for ANA was 23kg per bag. And the excess baggage fees were steep.

So, for the first time of I’m guessing many on this trip, we power walked through the terminal to find a baggage weigh station. Putting the heavy bag on the scale I held my breath…and the scale read .............. 23.2kg. 200 grams over weight.

The guy behind the weigh-in counter said they wouldn’t bother with 200 grams...so away we went, a lot more relieved that we wouldn’t be shelling out big dollars to get our overweight baggage on the flight, or alternatively, wear 20 layers of clothing onto the flight like mental patients.

ANA has an excellent check-in process. We printed the boarding passes out at home, and at the entrance to the check-in line we scanned the boarding passes and our passports, which made the little machine very happy, and as a result it spat out even fancier copies of the boarding passes, which allowed us to basically just throw our bags at the check-in attendants and proceed through customs control.

With that we faced the usual round of screening and putting stuff in baskets for scanning. Yours truly must have appeared suspicious, since I got dragged aside for the full body invasive scan, so now some poor guy or girl has my naked silhouette somewhere on file with my arms above my head like I'm surrendering.

With the formalities done, we found our way to the American Express lounge to kill the time before the flight. The Amex lounge was, if I'm honest, underwhelming, but I'm certainly not complaining since the visit came free with my ANZ FF Black Amex card.

The little man at the front counter was chronically happy and helpful, and the outlook from the lounge was great, over the international runways, but while the lounge was initially empty when we arrived at about 6pm, it pretty soon filled to the point of being filled to capacity. Food was also decidedly average, and since we're not drinkers we cant really comment on the range of alcohols.

Apologies to any Americans reading this, and this is probably some kind of offensive sweeping generalisation, but you guys don't travel well, do you? By far the highlight of the evening in the lounge was the American couple, Texan or thereabouts if I'm not mistaken, having the most ridiculous quarrel I've ever head. The man said nothing, or if he did say something, it was too quiet for us to hear from our seats 5 meters away.

The woman on the other hand systematically abused him for 20 odd minutes. Among her favorite and often-shouted lines were "Don't you dare sit there and make those faces at me!" and "You just keep sitting there! You really are a jerk!". I was so tempted to go over and ask what this guy had actually done, because it must have been spectacular.

Mercifully, our flight boarding was called before we could find out any more about this couples private lives from across the room, so we made our way to the boarding gate.

Up next, we find out whether any of us can overcome our frustrating and crippling inability to sleep on planes.