I didn’t make it to Japan in fall of 2025 because I was feeling poor. Being retired and having no job means my income is less which is usually fine, but covering all my medical bills was making me nuts. I didn’t spend any more on medical bills than a usual year but my financial advisor wasn’t trickling out enough money to me on a regular basis to cover it all. Plus, one of my doors was rotting and I had to pay for that (which was months later but that’s another story). Anyway, it’s spring of 2026 and I’m back in Japan!

First day was kind of a doozy: 26 ½ hours from when I got up to now. Got up at 4 AM to catch a flight from PDX to SEA, and then the long flight from SEA to HND. I got my flights on Expedia and my sister wondered why it was so expensive. Turns out I got the Comfort++ seats (or whatever they call the class between comfort plus and business) where the food was served with tablecloths and was better than what I usually get. They provided headphones, not just earbuds, but I like to use my noise cancelling headset. The plugs were all moved around though and I ended up using the provided headsets. That means I carried my bulky headphones for nothing.

Watched a few movies, like I usually do. First Anaconda with Jack Black and Paul Rudd. Plenty of dumb fun. After that I watched Zootopia 2. Then I tried watching No Other Choice which is supposed to be a black comedy but I found no humor in it. Maybe I’m not cut out for Korean movies. It was also hideously long and I could only stomach half of it. I switched to watching Shrek which I’ve never actually seen, and after being scarred (ha) by the Korean movie I stuck to watching episodes of High Potential since I’m not caught up on the current season.

The long slog from the plane to immigration started out the same as usual.

But then there was a choke point. I didn’t see any Chinese tourists but holy crap there were a lot of tourists coming into the country.

It took a while but like the friendly guys in the seats next to me said, “It’s way faster than Disneyland.”

I had a five hour layover before my flight to Nagasaki and there was a lot to do in the airport (at least for me). First, shipping off all of the gifts for friends and family, checking in my bag for the flight from HND to NGS, and then getting dinner since I wasn’t getting into Nagasaki proper until 10-ish. I went to my usual casual cafe and got my usual Napolitan spaghetti (ketchup spaghetti). I love the stuff. Probably too sweet for most Americans.

The view from the cafe isn’t bad, either.

Up to that point I was feeling great. I usually start fading after eating dinner, even though it was pretty light. The flight started boarding about 6:30pm and they were really quick about it. The plane was mostly empty and it took a couple of hours to get to Nagasaki airport. It’s small. I only saw two other planes on the field and one was a commuter plane. From there the bus takes about 50 minutes to get to Nagasaki station and I checked in before 10pm PDT, 26 hours after leaving. I hit a combini before I went to bed (had to make sure to hydrate) and also got a korokke (beef croquette) as my late-night snack. WIlkinson is fizzy water and Pocari Sweat is a sports drink.

That’s it for my first travel day!