Friday & Saturday, 17-18 October 2025

Bob has included me in his email reports when Jean and he go on trips and it seemed about time that I returned the favour, especially considering this trip is a little bonkers. I’m not sure how well I’ll go at this but if you don’t try you don’t know.

This is the end of day 2 and I am finally in Asahikawa, Hokkaido (the furthest north of the main islands). Getting here wasn’t too bad although it was a bit stressful. I’m using a Cathay Pacific fare and it had what I would consider a courageous transfer in Melbourne between a domestic Qantas flight from Adelaide and an international one to Hong Kong on day 1. Of course the Qantas flight was delayed departing and the 1h20 connection became more like an hour. While connecting in Melbourne isn’t as bad as doing it in Sydney it was tight. Fortunately no dramas at security, although their stupid high tech scanners make everything slower, so I walked straight into the Cathay plane, which was doing last call.

I overnighted in the Regal Hong Kong airport which is connected to the airport via an enclosed walkway. Why overnight? The fare + hotel was cheaper than the later flight that would have meshed better with the onward flight so I got to sleep in a bed. Returning to the airport I discovered that I could use the e-gates rather than line up to talk to a customs agent so that was a win.

I had a window seat on the left hand side of the flight to Haneda in the hope of seeing Mt Fuji but the clouds said no.

International arrivals at Haneda T3 was something. I think I arrived at the same time as an American flight from somewhere and a Chinese flight. Usually a recipe for disaster but the Japanese seemed to have it covered. The customs hall is way too small so they had cordoned off lines going back and forth across it. They had even numbered the turn around points so it was a bit of a countdown. Japan has introduced a web site to create a QR code for customs and quarantine. They still have paper forms, which the Americans seemed to have, because… Anyway at about turn #3 the people with QR codes get routed off to an area with machines which read your passport and the QR code, get you to confirm the info, take a photo and index fingerprints and then you are back to the queue. Customs agent just gets to look at the passport, print the landing sticker and you’re done. The paper process catches up the photo & fingerprints. Then it’s waiting for luggage, not really a wait since it’s already there and it’s off to quarantine where there are separate areas for the QR people and the paper. They do facial recognition on people queuing in the QR line (and there is queue minder who will eject you from the line if you don’t pass muster) and then you are out.

As I was coming to Hokkaido on a domestic flight I had to change terminals. I took the least painful option and used the free bus. You can also use the monorail or the train but that means picking up a free ticket from some counter and they didn’t seem worth the hassle. The bus was running often enough that one filled and another turned up.

Of note I was going to change some Korean Won, Taiwan Dollars and Chinese Yuan into Yen at a currency exchange in T3 but there was a massive line. At T1 (JAL’s domestic terminal) there was no line (different company but I don’t expect the rates were massively different).

JAL’s domestic Sakura lounge doesn’t do food, which is a bit sad but once there I couldn’t be bothered going out again looking for some. It also turns out that the domestic flight doesn’t do food either. Good job I had two “breakfasts”.

My flight to Asahikawa was delayed which did make me wonder what happens to the airport bus as mine was the last flight in for the day but it’s schedule is aligned with the plane arrivals so it was waiting. I thought I had to buy a ticket at a vending machine in the terminal but it turns out I could have done it on the coach. Unlike the plane the coach had announcements in Japanese and English but everyone got off at the train station, where my hotel is located.

If only it was like this as we flew past Mt Fuji.

Bedroom’s at the Y’s Asahikawa are quite roomy

Pretty much a standard Japanese hotel bathroom