Japan transport services pride themselves on their punctuality. Trains adhere to a timetable so precise, that any delay of a rail service greater than 50 seconds is said to be "running late". Japanese Airlines, I can only imagine are the same, if not more protective of their punctuality record.

So, it turns out, if you're catching a domestic flight, connecting from an international leg of the same airline on a fairly tight schedule, you have the ability to make many, many airline staff very very concerned, to the point where I thought were were all going to get personal piggy-back rides through the airport terminal in order to make our connecting flight on time.

More on that later.

In true Japanese efficiency, the flight out of Sydney was boarded, seated and underway with military precision. The 787-9 we'd be spending the next 9 and a half hours in seemed like a fairly nice place to be. The seats were thinly padded, but comfortable, and at 34 inch pitch, legroom was more than acceptable.

After the flight took off, getting everyone off to sleep was put temporarily on hold when they started serving dinner almost as soon as the fasten seatbelt sign was switched off after take-off.

A choice of pork katsu curry and rice, or some strange looking and sounding seafood dish. None of us wanted to gamble with our health at the beginning of the holiday, so we each chose the curry. Surprisingly, it was very good, and came with a side of pickles and omelet, 4 fruit cubes, some prosciutto, some cured salmon, and some pasta which curiously tasted more like fish than the actual fish did.

Obviously in a hurry to hand out their quota of in flight stuff before dimming the lights, within the next 20 minutes out came drinks, and strangely, breakfast in a bag (at 10:30pm at night), consisting of pastries and other questionable edibles.

So I'll bet by now you're wondering whether we all got a good night sleep on the plane, and awoke fresh as daises, ready to tackle our first day in Japan, right?

Uh..no. unfortunately not. Once again we have proven, without a shadow of a doubt, that we cannot sleep on planes. It is currently 11:30pm on the 30th March Japan time, or 1:30am on 31st March NSW, Australia time. I have not slept a wink of sleep since 5am on the 29th March when my stupid alarm went off. This according to my humbly sleep deprived calculations is 44.5 hours without sleep, and I'm still typing this blog post.

I'm not sure at what number of sleep deprivation hours the human body starts to shut down and permanently disable vital cognitive functions, but I'm pretty sure I'm getting close to that magic number.

Nowhere in the rule book does it specify that holidays *must* be used for "relaxing".

For the entire flight, we all got differing variations on the theme of sleep. Isabelle fared best, I would assume getting approximately 4 to 5 hours of actual sleep, hidden entirely (i.e. head to toe) underneath her in flight blanket. Angela probably got 3 to 4 hours sleep, while Veronica and Charlotte probably got an hour or two of broken sleep if they were lucky. I spend 9 and a half hours trying to come up with a fairly painless and quiet way to lose consciousness, entirely unsuccessfully.

Post flight, we disembarked at Haneda airport, and made our way through customs, with the intention of collecting our baggage, re-checking it for the next leg of our journey, which was a domestic flight to Kobe. By our calculations the flight into Haneda got in before 5, and the flight to Kobe didn't leave until 6:25, so we'd have a bit of time to get a coffee, maybe exchange the JR rail pass vouchers, etc.

Surely 90 minutes would be plenty of time, right?

Apparently no, it isn't.

Instead what we ended up with was endlessly more entertaining.

Today I learned that small Japanese female airline employees can run very, very quickly, and lift very, very heavy suitcases like gorillas tossing tissue boxes around when the punctuality of one of their planes is at stake, as it most certainly was this morning.

When we got to the international customs gate, we were scanning our passports through, getting our fingerprints read, etc, when we spotted a small girl in an official looking ANA uniform, holding a large sign with our surname on it, practically hopping from foot to foot with nervous anticipation. She literally did not even wait for us to clear customs before she came in to speak to Veronica, informing her that WE MUST GO....WE MUST GO NOW. NOW QUICKLY.

She had evidently been tasked with the mission of getting us from our international flight, through baggage claim, and literally miles across to the other side of the Haneda island airport in time for us to board and catch our connecting flight without delaying the plane.
And with this briefing in mind, she introduced herself, explained her mission, turned, and literally started running.

Not a quick walk...actual running. Were this an Olympic walking event, she would be instantly disqualified. Every 5 or 6 bounds she'd look behind to make sure we were all running at the same speed as her. Problem was, we weren't.
I in particular found this hilarious, but strangely our small, athletic new friend was not as amused with the situation as I was, reminding me several times on our mini marathon that PLANE WAITING. WE MUST HURRY.

She got us to a bus stop, and practically pushed us onto it while quickly explaining that there would be a similarly concerned colleague of hers at the destination bus stop to guide us to the plane. Our frazzled guide then moved alongside the front of the bus to signal the driver to start with a drop of her hand, just as a rally starter marshal would signal a driver to begin a rally stage. In my sleep deprived state, this was equal parts surreal and magnificent.

She wasn't kidding about her colleague. Also with sign in hand, and also very insistent on the running to get to the plane, we followed her as she expertly plowed a path through the early morning domestic commuters. Skipping the luggage check in queues we walked into the domestic baggage check-in through the side, staff only entrance, and threw our bags at the attendant, and was then told that we "must go now" to catch the plane, which was at the boarding gate, which was another 500m+ walk away from the baggage check-in.

We'd been in Japan for an hour so far, and to this point we'd had literally no time to take any of it in, because we'd been maintaining a semi canter since walking off the international flight.

Naturally, since you're reading this, obviously we did make the flight, and almost on time too.
My guess was that while we purchased the flight over there with an additional connecting domestic leg, this wasn't actually supposed to be a deliberately available option. The timeframe to get to the connecting flight was quite simply too tight. A second reason why I think this was a mistake is that I was able to book the flight from Sydney to Haneda with the connecting flight to Kobe for over a hundred dollars per ticket LESS than I was able to book simply the Sydney to Haneda leg of the journey (on the exact same flight on the exact same day).

Nothing remarkable about the Haneda to Kobe flight, except to say that it was obviously the businessman express. Our family were the only females on the entire flight, and despite being a full flight, I counted a total of only 4 suitcases on the post-flight baggage claim carousel. All other passengers simply had briefcases or carry-on baggage.

We had grand plans for how we were going to spend the day at Kobe. Kobe beef steak restaurant for lunch (if I could hand over the cash without crying), a day at Kobe Harborland, time permitting a trip up the ropeway to the scenic lookout and gardens overlooking the city.

Honestly, we were too damn tired. 2 sleepless flights and a brisk jog through an airport chasing an airline employee had beaten us.

Coffee... Needed. Coffee.

Man I love Japan Starbucks. I set myself challenge last September, that I wasn't going to drink any coffee until I was able to sit down to Starbucks coffee in Japan. I'll gladly boast that I succeeded, and the net result is that the caffeine I consumed this morning is still helping me type at 90wpm after 40+ hours with no sleep.

But we deliberately, and readily shelved all of the grand plans I'd set for us today. We located one of our favorite restaurants, Yoyoiken under the trainline overpass, and had, as we remembered from our previous visits, fantastically fast, superbly tasty and cheap meals. How this restaurant can produce the meals that they do for the price (approximately 700 yen, or about AU$7.50 per meal "set") is beyond me. It must all come down to efficiency and volume in order to turn a profit. For this price, and come to think of it, speed, a similar fast food purchase would be a Big Mac meal, and as you can see from the photos, there is simply no comparison.

With lunch done, I exchanged the rail pass vouchers in what was a 20 minute bout of manual form filling paperwork time wasting. The same process could easily be achieved by a simple passport scan, and signature collection, but no, the most advanced rail network in the world, in the most technically advanced nation on Earth makes you fill out a huge form manually, in order to get your rail pass that you've already paid for and have been issued an order voucher for.

A few train stops later, including the first Shinkansen journey of the trip, and we were in Kyoto. Thankfully we weren't going in the opposite direction on the same line, since a delay of "Human body incident" had caused a delay on those services. I can only think of one such type of "incident" which would warrant such a seemingly standard delay code posted on the LED signage boards.

I think I've said this in a previous blog, but if anywhere in Japan feels like "home", Kyoto is it. It is without a doubt my favorite city in the world, and it is where we're spending the most time on this trip.

Without all of the Kobe activities on the agenda, we arrived in Kyoto early, and with time to kill, and zero energy to kill it with, we went to McDonalds across the road from the hotel for 30 minutes while our fantastic "treehouse apartment" room was prepared. Yes it is McDonalds, but there is literally no other casual coffee shops or eateries within close walking distance, so ice creams and drinks fit the bill nicely.

Plus I got to try the "Sakura Mcflurry" which was on the to-do list. Strangest thing I've ever tried, to the point where my brain cannot explain the flavour (or it could just be the ruptured synapses caused by the fatigue), but I really enjoyed it. Would definitely order again. Opinion around the table was mixed however.

Convenience store meals for everyone for dinner, and an early bedtime for everyone except me tonight. I instead battled a tempremental Windows 10 BSOD issue on my laptop, which for a few hours threatened to leave this trip blogless, but since you're reading this it would appear that the issue is sorted.

The other thing of note, is that the Sakura, or cherry blossom, is significantly delayed this year. At this time last year the cherry blossoms had bloomed already. This year they are not expecting them to bloom for days yet. I'm not particularly concerned, since we're here for 3 weeks so we will probably see all of the sakura that we want, but it does alter the itinerary.
Tomorrow we were planning on doing some of the famous cherry blossom spots around Kyoto, but there is little point doing so when the cherry trees are bare sticks.

So instead, tomorrow we're going for a quick jaunt South West to Hiroshima and Miyajima. This was always on the to-do list, and since sakura bloom from South West to North East, apparently Hiroshima and Miyajima have started flowering already. Also, tomorrow in Kyoto is supposed to be raining, so I think the Miyajima trip may be a good alternative.