Good Friday — April 3, 2026

After all the planning, the google maps, the arguments over which side of Tokyo things were actually on, and 115 days of learning Japanese…

I was actually going to Japan.

As all loving husbands do, having a wife who absolutely hates driving on the highway, I had her drop my son and me off at the airport. We arrived at Pearson Airport at around 9 a.m. The flight wasn’t until 1:05 p.m., but my wife wanted to make sure she could get back home at a reasonable time, mainly because of traffic issues……. but this was Good Friday, A Holiday and the roads were nice and quiet. But happy wife, Happy life and all that, plus it seemed a perfectly reasonable request at the time.

What we didn’t realise was that she was about to get lost leaving the airport. And not just a little bit lost. It took her three and a half hours to do what should have been a one-hour drive home.

Yep.

Three and a half hours.

Which makes me wonder…

where exactly does my son get his geographically challenged issues from? 😂

While my son and I were sitting comfortably inside Pearson, preparing to fly halfway around the world, my wife was apparently having her own geographical adventure just trying to get home.

Suddenly, my son’s inability to navigate anywhere didn’t seem quite so mysterious.

Finally, We’re Through Security

Check-in done.

Security done.

We were officially in the departure lounge. So, naturally, it was time to do some last-minute shopping and stock up on chocolates and little snacks. Because let’s face it, when you’re diabetic and you’re about to spend 13 hours on a plane, you want to make sure you’ve got a few little goodies with you just incase.

Nothing excessive. Just a few things to keep me going. Or at least that’s what I told myself. 😂

Issue Number One

Then came issue number one.

I’d bought myself a brand-new backpack specifically for the trip. It had a little built-in combination lock on it, which I thought was a great idea. You know, just in case anyone decided they wanted to get into my bag and help themselves to my stuff. Except there was one small problem.

I couldn’t get into it.

I’m still not entirely sure what happened. Either the lock broke……or I’d forgotten the combination I’d set. At this point, I’m not prepared to rule out either possibility. But there I was, sitting in Pearson Airport, about to fly 13 hours to Japan…with a brand-new backpack that was apparently more secure from me than it was from anyone else. 😂And where was my wallet during all of this…… In the most secure place at Pearson Airport.

Problem number one had arrived. And we hadn’t even boarded the plane yet. But as all good mechanics, I wasn’t going to let this put me back. So I spent the next 45 minutes to an hour trying to break into my own backpack. With whatever items i had on my person or that were not locked in Fort Knox.

Which, in the middle of an airport departure lounge, probably looked very suspicious. There I was, fiddling around with a locked backpack, trying different combinations and generally looking like I was attempting to gain access to something I probably shouldn’t have. Thankfully, nobody came over to arrest me. Eventually, I managed to get the bloody thing open, and retrieve my wallet ready for the shopping trip in Duty Free.

To this day, I still don’t know whether the lock had broken or whether I’d simply forgotten the combination. Either way, I’d successfully broken into my own backpack. And we hadn’t even left Canada yet. 😂

Issue Number Two

So far the trip was going great, We would be boarding probably before the wife got home, I had managed to eventually break into my own backpack and grab snacks. Shortly after walking down to our actual gate, issue number two arrived.

Apparently, Air Canada had overbooked the flight.

There were no spare seats anywhere. In fact, they didn’t just need one or two passengers to give up their seats. They needed 15 passengers to get off the plane. Who could ever of imagined that an entire plane full of passengers, who had paid very good money to either have the trip of a lifetime, or go and visit friends and relatives, may actually turn up for their flight.

I’m not sure what sort of maths was being used when they booked that flight, but apparently 15 people had somehow become optional. 😂

And there we were, sitting in the departure lounge, ready to fly 13 hours to Japan……and now there was a possibility we weren’t even getting on the bloody plane.

They started offering $1,000 to any passenger willing to give up their seat.

That didn’t seem to be enough.

So they doubled it. $2,000.

Still not enough people volunteering. Then they tripled it. $3,000.

At that point, my son and I looked at each other. We’d been waiting around in the airport, we’d already had one problem with the backpack, and now Air Canada was basically asking us if we’d like to get $3,000 each to not go to Japan today.

And then we started thinking… Well… we could stay in a hotel tonight and go tomorrow. We had enough flexibility in our schedule to move things around, and lets face it Japan wasn’t going anywhere. And apparently, neither was the money. 😂

Quietly we decided that if it went over $4,000 each, then we’d seriously consider giving up our seats and leaving on the Saturday. After all, we’d only lose one day in Japan. And at that point, $4,000 each was starting to make one day seem like a pretty reasonable trade. 😂It more than covered the cost of the return flights.

Thankfully, they managed to get enough volunteers at $3,000, so we didn’t have to make the decision.

We were going to Japan.

Once the mad rush for boarding was over and our section was eventually called, we quickly found our seats, and I was very glad I’d booked the extra legroom. It turned out I’d got a seat over the wing, by the emergency exit, and I swear I had about 8 feet of legroom in front of me. At 6’4”, this was basically luxury.

There was also another little bonus. Because I was sitting by the door, during take-off and landing I had the lovely air hostess sitting opposite me, talking to me. So i got a basic rundown of the flight plan, how to navigate Haneda Airport, and how good the Cherry Blossoms currently were.

So not only did I have enough room to stretch my legs…I had company as well. 😂Which seeing as my son seemed to have had his headphones on ever since we were dropped off at the airport. Made for a nice brief hit of adult interaction. All in all, it was a pretty good seat to have for a 13-hour flight.

Issue Number Three

Then came the moment that mattered. A moment that during any flight divides the entire plane, in the blue corner you have the passengers who love this moment, enjoy the feeling of being pushed back into your seat and whoosh up up and away, free like a bird. And then in the red corner, you have those unfortunate passengers that absolutely hate this moment, are scared, panicky and want to get off (this is one of the main reasons my wife doesn’t like to fly unless absolutely necessary). I fall somewhere in the middle of these two, as I have flown enough that, yes i like the takeoff sensation, but I also have enough respect for the mechanics behind the theory of flight to also have a degree of fear during take-off and landings.

The captain went full throttle. We hurtled down the runway.

We hit V1.

Then VR.

Shortly afterwards, V2.

You could feel him pull back on the stick and…

……Issue number 3.

April 3rd, 2026 was a warm day. The plane had been sitting at Toronto Pearson Airport with the air conditioning running for quite a while. And as some of you may know, when you’ve got air conditioning running for a long time, condensation and moisture happens.

Or as its affectionately known in the industry – Rain in the Plane. For those of you who have not been privileged or lucky enough to pick those seats, it happens when the aircraft’s water separators fail to catch all the moisture, allowing liquid moisture to travel straight into the ductwork and drip out of the overhead vents.

And water has to go somewhere. Unfortunately, on this particular flight, some of it decided to go straight onto me.

The captain pulled back on the stick.

The nose lifted.

And somewhere above me, a pool of moisture changed direction.

Then suddenly…

WHOOSH.

A load of water came straight out of the overhead locker and all over me. Rain in the Plane.

I got an unexpected shower. Not exactly the kind of free service I was expecting to have on the way to Japan.

The poor air stewardess sitting opposite me must have thought her day had just taken a very bad turn. You could literally see the colour drain from her face. We’d just left Toronto for a 13-hour flight to Japan. The passenger she’d been sitting opposite and chatting to for the last five or ten minutes…

was now absolutely drenched.

I think she was probably wondering what the hell had just happened. And to be fair, so was I. 😂, there was no where for her to hide, no way to help her passenger as the seat belt light was still on, we had just started the climb to 35,000 feet, she must of felt so many different emotions in those first few moments. OMG, what do I do, what does the training say to do, OMG.

Luckily for her, I was the one sitting in that seat. There’s no point getting upset about it. The plane was in the air, we had 13 hours ahead of us, and there wasn’t exactly anything either of us could do about it. So i let out a big laugh and joked about the joys not having to worry about my hair as i haven’t got much left anyway.

it was one of those moments in life where you can laugh, cry or get angry. Well, I choose to be jolly. 😂

Thankfully, the next 12 hours and 58 minutes were actually uneventful.

Which, after the first couple of minutes, was exactly what I was hoping for. 😂

The main Problem With a 13-Hour Flight

One thing that did become apparent throughout the flight was that I wasn’t the only one who had noticed I’d booked the extra legroom.

Other people had started coming up and standing in our space. Initially, yes, I did get a little bit pissy about it. But considering the circumstances, and the fact we were heading to one of the most peaceful and tranquil places on the planet i decided to practice a little bit of what i read in one of the guide books – Jinrui mina kyōdai which translates to All of humanity are brothers. See Mrs. Green of Grade 4, I can pay attention, I can retain things and may not be the total failure you thought i was.

Eventually, I decided to just stretch my legs and make the most of the space I’d paid for. I got talking to one nice gentleman who’d come up from the Southern States. He was explaining to me how difficult it was being 6’5” in the smaller seats at the back of the plane, and how much he wished he’d booked the extra legroom.

I looked at my son.

He looked back at me, trying not to laugh.

Then I looked at the 6’5” gentleman standing next to me…

…and looked down at him.

I’m not entirely sure how bad his tape measure was the day he decided he was 6’5”, but I wouldn’t have put him anywhere over 5’11”. 😂

Keeping the Nicotine Levels Up

As I mentioned earlier, I’d done some pre-flight shopping before we boarded, making sure I had a few chocolates and snacks with me for the flight. But there was another issue that both myself and quite a few other people on that flight were facing.

I was a smoker.

And if you’re a smoker, you know that a 13-hour flight, on top of three or four hours at the airport before you even take off, is a long time between cigarettes. By the time we’d actually left Toronto, I’d already been at the airport for several hours. Then came the 13-hour flight. There wasn’t much I could do about it. And it was my own fault.

But as I’d travelled across the Atlantic several times and flown all over North America, I was somewhat used to not smoking for periods of time. Just not necessarily 16 to 20 hours. So I prepared for it in exactly the same way I always do.

Nicotine patch on the arm prior to boarding.

I also had a Nicorette inhaler, which is TSA approved. There’s no smoke that comes out of it. It’s basically something you hold in your hand, suck on, get a little hit of nicotine, and carry on with your day. And then I had the other option…

Nicotine pouches.

In theory, you stick one under your lip, leave it there for a while and you get the nicotine hit you crave…….. In theory. The reality is it tastes like ass (presumably) and you put it in, it burns, you spit it out, crave nicotine so put it in, spit it out… Rinse and repeat for as long as you can stand it. Why anyone would willingly do this form of torture to themselves is beyond me, i would pick a cigarette over that any day.

I have no idea why I kept doing it. But when you’re a smoker sitting on a 13-hour flight, apparently taste becomes less important than nicotine. 😂

Between the snacks, the nicotine, the extra legroom and my unexpected shower, we’d finally made it through the flight. Now all that was left was to land.

After months of planning, 115 days of learning Japanese, and three problems before we’d even left Toronto, we were finally about to arrive in Japan.

Time to see if all that preparation had actually been worth it.

Part 3. Japan…..Finally

Finally, after 13-plus hours, we were coming in to land at Tokyo Haneda Airport. As usual, the pilot did an amazing job and we had a great landing. And then it was time. Just like the build-up to the Olympic 100-metre final: You could see the passion and determination in their eyes……

Ready… set… grab your bags, run to the front of the plane and wait.

My favourite part of the flight. I learned a long time ago that I’m getting too old and too tired for this shit. So my son and I finished our candies, picked up the many wrappers that had been dropped on the floor or down the sides of the seats throughout the flight, got everything ready and, eventually, stood up. I clicked a few aching old bones back into position, had a stretch, a crack, grabbed our bags… And calmly became some of the last people off the plane.

This was actually one of the many strategic parts of the trip.

Why?

Because think about it. You get off a plane anywhere in the world, let alone Tokyo. You don’t really know where you’re going, do you?

So you put your faith in the guy at the very front.

And suddenly you’ve got a 500-person conga line, all leaving the aircraft, heading down multiple corridors, upstairs, downstairs, left, right, following the person in front and hoping that the guy at the very front actually knows where he’s going. My thinking was simple.

Stay at the back.

If they’ve taken a wrong left turn or a wrong right turn, by the time we eventually get there, surely somebody will have figured it out and we’ll be back on track.

After all, I didn’t want to be the one who was geographically challenged and accidentally led everyone in the wrong direction around Haneda Airport in Tokyo.

There are some mistakes you only make once and today was not going to be that day.

Now comes the part that separates the men from the boys.

I wouldn’t say I was a control freak, but I like to know what’s happening, what I’m doing, where I’m going, and what time I’m going to be there.

Basically, I like a plan.

Preferably one with a backup plan.

And a backup for the backup.

Unfortunately, Japan was about to put that theory to the test.

Problem number one.

I had identified ahead of time what the first issue i would have after we arrived. I have a company phone. If I turn the data on in Japan, it probably wouldn’t be the best career move, would it. So i had to find a solution ahead of time. This is where the 6 P’s come in handy.

Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

i had done my homework – Again see Mrs. Green I can do my homework when its warranted.

Option 1. Get my own phone in Canada with a travel plan, ok but expensive long term.

Option 2. Buy a SIM card in Japan and use existing phone, ok but fat fingers + poor eyesight with not one but two SIM cards and trying not to loose the company one for a whole to weeks…… mmmmmm NO thank you.

Option 3. A Pocket WIFI…….. A WHAT…… Its a small portable router that creates a private WIFI hotspot for up to 10 devices…….. i grew up in the 80’s my friend, I can only imagine walking around with some big electrical box with flashing lights, setting off an alarm every time i leave a store……… I’m good

Option 4. An eSIM – If six months earlier, you’d said to me, “Hey Jolly, what’s an eSIM?” I’d probably have thought, possibly a Japanese car. Maybe some kind of new phone but definitely something electrical, confusing and probably expensive. Fast forward six months.

Problem number one solved.

I pull out my iPhone, switch on my roaming, connect my eSIM…

Boom.

I’ve got a data package for Japan. Jolly has finally joined the Technobabble generation. And why did I need data now, why couldn’t I wait and buy or rent something in the terminal or from a convenience store?

Problem number two.

To speed up airport arrivals, Japan has a digital Customs and Immigration Declaration that you can do prior to arrival, its essentially an electronic landing card: Instead of handing you a pen and a paper form on the airplane, Japan allows travelers to submit their passport data, stay details, and customs declarations online to get a QR code. This allows you to have the QR code ready to scan rather than join the now infamous conga line queues and do it after you land.

I did it for my son too. Turn on the app, retrieve the barcode, scan the code…

Skip the queue.

Win-win.

Problem number two: solved.

A short walk to passport control. The usual stuff — take some photos, fingerprints, colour of underwear, whatever else they decide to ask as question of the day for that day.

Passport stamped.

I’m in Japan.

At this point, I wasn’t getting overconfident. I had my bags, i had my passport stamp but also I knew the biggest challenge was yet to come. And the travel portion of the day was far from over.

During the days, weeks and months of preparation, the first thing we needed to work out was where we were going to stay in Tokyo.

Tokyo is one of the biggest cities — if not the biggest — in the world. So we decided we wanted somewhere close to a train station. Being the expert of international travel that I am, and knowing the Japanese train system so well, we stumbled across a place called Shinagawa. It looked like maybe a few trains came in and out of there. So we decided that somewhere near Shinagawa would be where we’d stay.

Next, we needed a hotel. Where better than the Shinagawa Prince Hotel? It basically has Shinagawa in the name, so it has to be pretty close. That was the easy bit done.

Problem number three:

How the hell do you get from Tokyo Haneda Airport to Shinagawa Station?

Again, not that I like to be a control freak, but the 6 P’s won again, as I had set up every part of the trip on Google Calendar. So, out comes the iPhone. Flick to Saturday, April 4th. Scroll down. Approximate arrival time: 4:26. Click on my little link.

There it was, now all I needed to do was find the Keikyu Airport Line, Haneda Terminal 3, which would take me to Shinagawa Station in approximately 12 minutes.

Simple.

What could possibly go wrong?

As you leave the customs area, you turn right, walk out of the international arrivals area on the second floor and look for signs that say Keikyu Railway or, even better, the universal symbol for trains. And I’m not going to lie — those were the ones I was looking for. Turn right through the exit doors, then right again.

Next, it was time to see if my IC card would actually work.

What is an IC card, you might ask? Basically, it’s a travel card. There are a few different kinds, but the two most popular are Suica and PASMO. We’d gone for the Suica card because we both had iPhones. We could download it through the app and have it sitting right there in our Apple Wallet. Unfortunately, at the time, Android didn’t let you do the same thing.

So, like a hero, I pulled out my iPhone yet again. I walked up towards the gate. Phone out. Wallet open. Suica card ready.

Find the big shiny area…Find the mysterious digital scanner Thingymabob and……

Tap.

Close eyes…… Hold breath….. cross fingers and toes…….

Beep.

The gate opens.

Success.

Another win. This Japanese thing was starting to feel easy and i was starting to wonder what all of the fuss was about, we are in one of the most technologically developed countries in the world, of cause the bloody gate would open…… wouldn’t it. I should probably point out, just incase my son ever reads this, this was probably one of the only times I managed to get the Suica card to work on my phone first time, or second or third time.

Then down onto the platform. And the first on many WOW moments on this trips, we were met with what I can only describe it as probably one of the cleanest train platforms I’ve ever been on.

It was well lit, well signposted, with multiple vending machines if you were after a drink or a snack.

The arrivals board was clear.

You knew exactly how many minutes until the train was due.

This was the train taking us from Haneda to Shinagawa on a 12-minute journey on the Keikyu Line.

Everything was looking good.

So far, so good.

Japan was starting to feel easy.

Shinagawa

Some 12 minutes or so later, we arrived at what I had earlier described as a train station that looked like it had a couple of trains coming and going. What I didn’t know at the time, but do know now, is that Shinagawa is a major multi-level transportation hub, handling roughly one million passengers a day. Apparently if you see a video of crowds walking through a train station, it was probably filmed here.

Multiple levels.

Fifteen train platforms.

Four Shinkansen bullet train platforms.

Maybe…

just a little bit bigger than I had anticipated.

But again, everything was clean, well posted and easy to navigate. First job, Find the exit. Out the doors, turn left, down to the main road, cross at the crossing, turn left, turn right…And within two minutes, we arrived at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel.

Check-in was easy. The queues weren’t too long — probably five or ten minutes. Got our key, up to the 28th floor, found our room, dropped our bags off and could finally breath. 10,341 kms (6,426 miles), no one got lost, no idea how long we have been awake for, but we have arrived. A little tired, a little smelly, a little grumpy. But we were finally here. And remarkably in one piece, both of us.

Then it dawned on me, after what felt like a millennia, but was probably only about 20+ hours, I could finally think about having a cigarette.

Now, one thing I had discovered during my research before we went to Japan was that smoking in Japan isn’t quite as straightforward as it is in some other places.

You can’t just smoke in public spaces. You can’t walk down the street having a cigarette. You can’t simply stop wherever you fancy and light one up. You have to use designated smoking areas. Thankfully, I had found one in the Shinagawa Prince Hotel. I believe it was on the seventh floor.

So, back in the elevator, down to the seventh floor, and then off I went wandering around a hotel that, quite frankly, was almost as big as Shinagawa Station. Eventually, I found it. A set of glass doors with a picture of a cigarette on the sign. I had no idea what to expect. I pushed the button. The glass doors opened. And there it was. A big room absolutely full of smokers. But it wasn’t full of smoke as the vents do a remarkable job of getting rid of the smoke.

Now, admittedly, I didn’t exactly look like the rest of the people in the room. Mainly because I was smoking an actual cigarette. Everyone else were smoking these electric cigarettes that had what looked like a onetime use cigarette filter, not like the typical vapes you see, this was a kind that I’d never seen before.

I had absolutely no idea what they were. But I just knew that I’d finally found somewhere I could have a smoke. After a couple of smokes, I decided I’d waited long enough and went back to meet up with my son. By this point, we were starting to get tired, and luckily the hotel had a food court.

So We decided to try some traditional Japanese food. After all, this was why we’d come to Japan. Try the cuisine. Try new things. We were up for this or so we thought.

My son went for the full Japanese ramen bowl experience.

And I, in true Jolly fashion, went for the traditional Japanese……….Pizza.

Ordering it was our first real taste of Japan though, as we’d find out over the next couple of weeks, when you order food in a lot of places in Japan, especially in the tourist areas, a lot of it is done on an iPad or a computer and even your phone.

You click on what you think you want. The problem is, you don’t always know what you want. Or, more importantly, what the hell it is you’re actually ordering. And some of the combination of toppings never quite made it to the Domino’s menu, at least not in the West.

So you go by the pretty pictures. Click a few buttons. Put your card in. Pay for your meal. And wait.

And what you’re waiting for, in this particular scenario, is for someone at the food counter to call your number out in Japanese. Now, if you can imagine it, this food court was huge. As most things were turning out to be in Japan. There must have been eight or ten different food vendors, if not more, arranged in a circle around the outside, with all the tables in the middle.

I’d ordered my pizza and sat at a table fairly close to the pizza place. The ramen place was probably 180 degrees away, on the other side of the room. My son was waiting over there.

I waited – Nothing.

I waited some more. Then i noticed a lady started shouting.

I ignored her. She carried on shouting, for what felt like five minutes.

Eventually, I accidentally made eye contact with her. And it wasn’t a particularly friendly eye contact. She looked at me. Shouted something in Japanese.

Now, after 115 days, I knew we weren’t talking about water, green tea or rice. Then she pointed at me. Then she pointed at the pizza. It did kind of look like the picture I’d ordered. So i made my move and walked over, took the pizza, received one final evil glare…

And went back to my table.

Had I finally met Hannah?

And was this why I might need a lawyer?

Now we were fully fed, fully watered, and, of course, there was just time for a quick stop on the seventh floor to make sure nobody had moved the smoking room. Thankfully, it was still there. So, smoke had been had, food had been eaten, we’d survived the flight, the airport, the train, the hotel and apparently even ordering a pizza in Japan.

It was time to go to bed. And after travelling for that long, we definitely needed it.