Japan

I think that Wendy thought that this was going to be a good holiday when she arrived to meet us at the foyer of the building the flat is in - to be greeted by us saying that we were off to the pub and if she wanted to have food there was no time to take her luggage up to the flat first.  Food service was due to finish in less than 30 minutes.

Fortunately the Prince Patrick is a mere 5 minutes walk away. We were there in time for food !

We were up in good time for our 4 am taxi and made it to the airport with plenty of time for our flight to Cairns.

I was a little disconcerted when I turned my phone back on in the Cairns airport to discover that our onward flight to Osaka, scheduled for 13:00 had been put back to 16:00.  You can't check your luggage from Melbourne to Osaka if you are going through Cairns because you do the immigration stuff in Cairns and not Melbourne.  So while Lindsey and Wendy were collecting our bags, I asked someone if there was somewhere we could leave the suitcases while we went into Cairns for Brunch.

She checked, and discovered that we could still check in for our flight at 9:00, so we trundled around to the international terminal, checked in, sent the bags through and took a taxi to the Cairns marina where we had a hearty breakfast

We pottered around in there shops for a while - though couldn't really buy anything much even if we had been minded to - and then went back to the airport and made our way airside.  Ours was the last flight of the afternoon so the airside shops were beginning to close.  Fortunately, the pub did not!

Obligatory brightly coloured cocktail to start the holiday.
I had wine.

We had an uneventful flight to Osaka, sailed through the empty immigration area and tootled off to collect our bags.  The disadvantage to having put our bags through so early was that ours were amongst the last ones out.  In fact, Wendy's was the last one out!!  The customs people were supremely uninterested in any of us and after a bit of a struggle we found the airport hotel that we normally walkout of the airport and then straight into. I have never had any trouble finding it before.

And here we are. Up, after a VERY long day yesterday.  Wendy is dressed and ready for adventures.  Lindsey and I are pottering around in our pyjamas. It might be 9:00 in the morning in Melbourne but it's only 7:00 here.  No rush.

As we passed through immigration in Cairns one of the people noticed that we all three had the same surname and asked if we were related.  On discovering that we are indeed related and in fact are sisters, they asked if we had permission from our parents to be heading off alone.  Ah, we replied.  In fact Mother had expressly forbidden us from going.  We had more or less Run Away.  They laughed - and let us go anyway.