I was so excited! I was back in Japan after 5 years and for the third time. I didn’t expect this to happen, especially that we already travelled to South Korea this year. But life is full of surprises and going back to Asia for the second time this year for another holiday was such a blessing.

It all started when my husband and I were having the afternoon tea to celebrate our 28th anniversary in June. After the dream talks of visiting Japan, we decided to make it a reality so I purchased air tickets and was immediately in a full planning mood. My husband was flying after a work trip in Bangkok and it was exciting to see how everything will come together. We stayed in 7 different places and dragged our luggages from Tokyo to Okinawa, from Tokyo (with a side trip to Fujiyoshida) to Takayama (with side trips to Kamikochi and Shirakawago), from Tokyo to Nikko and back to Tokyo. Many changes happened during planning – hotel changes and destination changes. But these were all part and parcel of planning for a holiday of a lifetime. One thing that I’m most thankful for this trip was remaining healthy, even though my husband just came back from a large conference in Bangkok with more than 400 attendees. The downside was really missing our kids because they were with us when we visited in 2018 and they really love Japanese food.

I arrived at Narita terminal 2 from Helsinki at 13:05 (actually some 30 minutes earlier than scheduled) and zoomed past immigration and customs, probably in less than 10 minutes. This was because I already registered online at Visit Japan Web and had the QR codes for immigration and customs. I also just had a hand carry luggage. The first thing I did after I exited the customs was to pick up the pocket wifi that I pre rented online. I really recommend this especially that my husband had a MacBook and iPad during this travel. Being able to access the internet from multiple devices was a plus and also we had internet connection while traveling. We paid 8,840 JPY (around 55 EUR) for the rental for 14 days.

At 13:30, my husband’s flight arrived from Bangkok. I was waiting for him at the same arrival area where I came in. It was a happy reunion after a week and so our holiday started. The first thing we did was to take the free shuttle bus to terminal 1 where I got a Welcome Eki stamp from the Tourist Information centre. Then we went to the Traveler’s Factory on the 4th floor to get myself a Traveler’s Notebook journal which is exclusively available at Narita airport. We also withdrew some Yen from the ATM and bought Welcome Pasmo cards which we used for transportation and convenience store purchases. We stayed for a night in Asakusa and flew out of Haneda airport to Okinawa the next day. Please watch the Day 1 reel here. The next post is about Okinawa…