I live in a beautiful, sheltered place.

The down side can be travelling from it.

The trip from Japan to home (Tasmania, Australia) was technically eleven and a half hours of train (Kyoto to Kansai 1.5 hr), air (Kansai to Cairns 6.5hr), air (Cairns to Melbourne 2.5hr) and a final plane trip (Melbourne to Launceston 1hr).

It travelled, including a short trip before leaving, for 40 hours and that was with relatively few hiccups.

We awoke on the 11th at 6am for a 5-6km walk (normal), then a three-train trip to the little community of Kibune out side of Kyoto, a lovely walk up the road from the train station, which was unfortunately semi-shut down due to a combination of mid season break and we assume some COVID closures.

The walk back and tri-train return, then a break to change and prepare brought us to 4pm, which was departure time for Kansai. About 80 minutes by train and you are in the mini city that is the Kansai international airport. We have to arrive early to avoid mix-ups and fit the not too early-not too late, window the airline enforces.

With post COVID flight reductions, the untrustworthiness of our national carrier* and some expected unknowns, we often had to take the safer option over the more time expedient one for transfers, which meant taking the 4-5hr lay over, rather than the 2-3hr. Add in a few expected delays and you enter the “dream sphere of doom” that is modern air travel.

Hours on hard seats, aimless walking, bad and often expensive food (Cairns international terminal the record holder with a $16 packet of sandwiches!), with sporadic and restless sleep all add up to a major circuit breaker between home and the holiday just had.

It often takes us several days to settle back into our memory space of enjoying the trip, sans post trip grumpiness.

I have deepened my natural dislike of airports, the process of travel and generally the sacrifices made to get somewhere worth going.

We will see how long it takes to dampen the memory enough for me to want to go anywhere again. Europe, with its 26hr + flight time used to be a two year recovery/forget process, but even Japan, with no real jet-lag and relatively short travel distances is going that way.

ed. a couple of weeks later and it all seems like a distant memory. Maybe with less travel angst, it might seem closer?

*an issue even they have recognised with a new CEO and board shuffle hopefully changing things.