We had thought that the travel to Australia was brutal, but the travel from New Zealand to Japan was unending. I remember thinking that we had nailed our route layout, but New Zealand is close to nothing. 

Some highlights of our 3 flight, one train, 44 hour travel days:

• Watched The Holdovers, it was pretty good, maybe dragged a bit in the middle

• While lounge hopping in Melbourne we got called to the gate to reprint our tickets and get terrified by being asked if we had a visa (we didn’t need one), but nothing like a little adrenaline before a nine hour flight

• We watched the Monk finale, which was…disappointing. 

Upon arrival in Japan we were more than slightly overwhelmed with the train system at Narita airport. There are Suica cards you can get to pay for transit, but some longer trains are run by different companies and require a seat reservation and ticket separately, part of which you can buy with the Suica, but you have to load the Suica with a good amount of cash, and we were overloaded tired. Eventually we got tickets (opting to postpone Suica card acquisition, which may have been a mistake) to a station close to our hotel, a taxi the final leg (the next day we would see a quick second train would’ve been fine). After a quick shower we headed out for a sushi dinner and slept quite well.