Tokyo to Tohoku 2026 (AKA how many honeymoons is too many?)

[HirafuHeartAttack]

Hello, me again!

So where to this time? Well as the old saying goes, if a bear was catholic would you hear it fall? Or something like that...

We decided to do it a little differently this time though! Off the beaten Aussie paths of Hokkaido, Nagano and Niigata and into uncharted territory for both of us, the great white north of Honshu! No Singapore or Hong Kong stopovers this time unforunately, just SYD-HND return.

The trip was only booked 12 days prior to travel. I'd been umming and ahhing about it for a while but the catalyst was finally being able to get through to payment on a JAL First reward through Qantas (and a pretty decent snow forecast!). Unfortunately after repeated attempts to unlock business seats home I had to settle for a classic plus reward for myself and my wife in economy. Immediately submitted an upgrade request as well. While I was happy with the 155000 points for the first reward, paying 143000 points for economy (plus another 83000) to upgrade was easily my worst redemption yet.

With flights booked it was on to itinerary planning. After a very chaotic few days in Tokyo in summer 2025 we wanted to return in winter to see what the 'overtourism' looked like in another season. I also found a stay plus free night for one of our most aniticipated new hotels, The Fairmont Tokyo, which combined with ALL points for the 3rd night meant we paid $1300aud for 3 nights compared with a full price rate of over $4000. This redemption certainly softened the blow of the awful flight price, as did the strong AUD to JPY.

After Tokyo we headed north, all the way to Aomori for a whistle stop tour of the snowiest city/prefecture in Japan. After a night here it was off to Morioka for 3 nights, Sendai for 2 and then Bandai Atami Onsen in Fukishima for 2 nights before returning to Tokyo and staying Villa Fontaine Grand HND T3 for our last night.

As usual I'll break the trip up by day with some summaries of flights and accommodation as well.

I know this is just 1 of 5 or 6 Japan trip reports going on right now so I appreciate if you read this at all and hope you'll stick along for the ride!

 

[HirafuHeartAttack]

Day 1 (Part 1):

Much like my last trip report, one of the most anticipated parts of this adventure was over by the conclusion of the first day...

As i mentioned above I had been seeing availabilty for JAL F through QFF for months prior. Unfortunately most of this was ghost availability with nothing showing either on Qantas' end when calling or on ExpertFlyer. Finally on the 6th Jan EF showed availability across all cabins on JL52 for an 18th Jan departure. From here I checked if it would allow me to proceed to payment which it did. This was the catalyst to scramble on return flights though as you saw above nothing too special came of this.

So after a Saturday night wedding of 2 really close friends, and both with some sore heads ourselves we loaded the suitcases and ski/board bag and set off to SYD. P7 Valet has been working a treat for us both convenience and cost wise so we pulled up as usual, unloaded the gear and said goodbye to the car. Up into the check in area and then a long walk alllllll the way to the K departure zone. Check in was fairly prompt for JAL F with only 2 groups ahead of us. After the bags were tagged and sent on their way we conveniently found a new(?) oversize drop off right behind the K check in area. A good thing to know if you are closer to this side of the terminal rather than having to go all the way back past the A row.

Back the opposite way to fast track security and immigration. All in all from Parking the car to duty free took about 15 minutes, most of which was walking from 1 end of the terminal to the other!

Hunger starting to come on and a craving for a coffee to at least stay awake until the flight (at this stage we were running on about 4 hours sleep) we headed straight to the QF first lounge for our first visit of the year (maybe last) and first breakfast visit for a few years.




We both had some yoghurt and muesli before my wife had the fritters and we shared the bacon and egg roll. Both very good as usual but I was saving myself somehwhat for the culinary trip we were about to embark on!



We left the lounge and headed to the gate where boarding was about to commence and almost strolled straight onto the plane. Now, spoiler alert, we have actually sat in these seats before. If you've read my last trip report there was an equipment change from Hong Kong to Tokyo in June 2025 and at the gate we were 'upgraded' to the forward cabin, however seat aside that flight was nothing like this!




Awaiting us at each seat was a pillow, blanket, water bottle and gender specific 'gift' from Shiseido.



We quickly put our carry ons above and then stowed our personal items under the huge ottomans in front and settled in. We were offered a welcome drink while I perused the menu.





We'd already made our decisions based on seeing the menu online prior to departure but the presentation within the leather bound case was still wonderful!