We decide to leave Japan during midday rather than an evening flight the day before. The airfares for the previous day were more expensive and equal to the cost of spending another night in Japan.

So we spend most of the morning commuting from Yokohama back to Tōkyō where Narita Airport is.

Its 6 AM, and this is the same amazing night view but during the day.

 

Our commute was made relatively easy by the Narita Express, a direct shinkansen connecting various destinations direct to Narita Airport. It’s about $10.00-12 more expensive than catching a rapid train to Tōkyō and then catching the Skyliner to the airport, but it was worth it just for the convenience of not needing to fight your way through a train station during peak hour in Tōkyō, which is a feat even without luggage.

  

We didn’t get much time to explore much of the airport but from what I saw, I much prefer Kansai International Airport in Ōsaka. That airport feels (and is) much more modern, not to mention the connection to Ōsaka itself is a fraction of the cost and time of that to Tōkyō. While we didn’t get time to explore, we did a manage to squeeze in a last Japanese meal. I had the udon while D had the rice bowl. Both were pretty decent but obviously not as tasty as what you can get outside.

It’s raining when our flight is scheduled to leave, and having flown with Jetstar, our plane was parked as far as possible from the runway it seemed. But that’s all right – we were in no rush as we had an 11 hour layover in Melbourne before our flight to Sydney the next day.

 

We stocked up on food for the plane. D stuck to his onigiri given his aversion to sandwiches, while I tried my tonkatsu sandwich. My sandwich was quite tasty even though it was cold – or maybe I was just hungry.

We fly over large expanses or ocean.

And fly over Cairns in the evening. It’s impossible to get similar photos of Japan at night from the plane because we’re always about to land and the cabin lights are always on.

We’re on the last leg from Melbourne to Sydney, probably closer to Sydney than Melbourne, ‘cause D and I went straight to sleep the moment the plane took off. The long layover certainly made us glad to have arrived in Sydney, but it also meant our Japan 2014 trip was well and truly over.

Our trip was absolutely amazing though, and only made us love Japan even more. Now that documenting the trip is over, I shall return to the backlog of food posts since Christmas!