Ra (my daughter) and I are up at 4am, at the airport at 5am and on our flight at 7am. We get in to Brisbane and board our next plane at 10am. Only to wait for an hour as a volcano has erupted off Japan and we had to wait for an amended flight plan. Ra was asleep before we’d taken off.

As we boarded the plan an Asian family (of what nationality I do not know and I'm not going to assume Japanese) who was one row in front of us to our left, wiped down their seatbelts, arm rests, trays and screens with wipes before they sat down. It striked me as odd but then I remembered how my husband who travels a lot would always arrive to where he was going, sick. He hates planes with a passion - he has nothing good to say about the hygiene of planes ever. So I get out my wipes and Ra and I proceed to wipe down our own area. I’m not concerned with what everyone else is thinking. I don’t want to get sick at the being of my holiday.

Our 8+ hour flight over was uneventful. I watched Good Omens and that was enough to keep me occupied. Had to go to the toilet every 2 hours which I hated. But I took my wipes with me and ensured I was coming out as sanitised as possible.

We arrive in Japan 2 hours late and by the time we got to Ueno station it was 9pm. We were exhausted and although our airbnb was a 20 minute walk from the train station we decided to find a taxi. Ra pulled out her phone to connect to wifi when a Japanese gentleman came up to us and in limited English asked if we needed help and pointed out the very large info board down from where we were standing. He walked us over as I pointed and said taxi. He then said, “Come” “Taxi here” and he walked us a little further down until we came to the taxi stand. He helped us load our luggage and with our Japanese address on our phone he explain to the driver where we needed to go. 

Honestly, that man will forever be my hero - he was super nice and helpful. I could not thank him enough. We climb into the taxi and the driver dropped us of at the bottom of our street. Only we had no idea where our building was as the street was long and we had to walk up hill until we found it. Ra was freaking out and I was too tired to care. I’d google mapped the area prior to arriving and I was confident if we kept walking we would find our building - and we did.

Got inside okay, showered and went straight to bed.