At the end of 2024, and the start of 2025, we had our epic 7 week family European Christmas and Winter adventure. The rest of 2025 was fairly light on in the travel stakes, much to everyone’s dismay. An April trip to Queensland to catch up with family and ride in the Tour de Brisbane bike race, and a few trips to Sydney for dance competitions and a musical. The kids were itching for another overseas adventure. Luckily we’d had one in the works all year and we were having to save our Yen, after the Euros were depleted on the last trip.
The kids had loved Japan on our first visit there, a 2 day stop-over on the way to Paris, at the start of December 2024, and had been very keen to go back ever since. So Japan was our next big trip, just over 3 weeks to explore more cities and towns and also fit in some snow and ski time.
It was December 29, 2025 and time to head off for the final adventure of the year. We were flying to Japan on Fiji Airways and this meant a stop-over in Nadi, Fiji both directions. On the way to Tokyo it was a full day in Nadi, but after all the hectic end of year activitites and Christmas, a day lazing by the pool in Fiji sounded pretty good.
One of the advantages of Fiji Airways is they fly direct out of Canberra a few days a week. No flight or bus/drive to Sydney or Melbourne. Our flight was due to leave just after 2pm so we spent all morning running around like headless chooks getting all that last minute stuff done. This seems to always be the pre-trip ritual no matter how organised we think we are 🙂
Off to Nadi….
We were off just after 12pm and hadn’t made it much past the end of our street when we saw the text message saying our flight was delayed. A return home and we had time to finish those last few things off and inhale more coffee before take two to the airport.
Just after 1.30pm we were back at the airport and we were through security and had our traditional Canberra airport photo, this time with a Christmas tree!
Through immigration and we chilled in the departure lounge, and found several people we knew, who were also heading to Fiji.
With no further delays we were finally on the way just after 3.30pm. Our flight was not that full, so Anto and Astrid had spare seat, next to them and got to spread out. I had the pleasure of Zinnia and Soren’s company but this was a pretty chill afternoon flight. We all watched plenty of movies and had afternoon lunch (now dinner). Zinnia ensured it took me 3 hours to get through every movie as she was running off to the bathroom constantly.
Otherwise it was an uneventful flight and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset on the way across the Pacific. Soren had really sore ears on landing and blocked up as did I on descent. This was the start of bad run of illness for both of us, little did we know.
Now on Fiji time….
Our flight flight landed just after 8.30pm local time. Unlike some previous visits to Nadi airport, we got through immigration and customs pretty swiftly and were out into the heat and humidity and in a taxi fairly soon. We’ve taken advantage of the direct flights out of Canberra on Fiji Airways a few times now, and have often needed to have a stop-over. We usually stay at the Airport Mercure. Which is not at the airport, but only 10 minutes away by taxi. By 10pm we were in our connecting rooms and ready for a nights sleep before a day of relaxing.
The kids had promised to sleep in, but with the time change the only one asleep after 8am was Astrid. She was refusing to go down to breakfast in typical teenager style! She did eventually appear though, the lure of buffet breakfast finally got her out of bed.
The buffet breakfast at the Mercure is pretty decent, and we we all indulged in many plates of fresh fruit and lovely curries, and made use of the omelette station. The kids had been warned that it was the only meal until dinner, so made sure they tried 5 of everything. Zinnia ate her body weight in food and Soren used the breakfast cucumbers for an impromptu relaxation session.
Sun and swimming…..
Our flight out to Tokyo was very late that evening, and we had decided we’d rather pay for late check-out and have the option of rests and showers than be stuck next to the pool all day. Fiji being Fiji, you can’t organise this in advance or via email or over the phone. After breakfast though we secured one of our two rooms for the day, and relocated all our belongings and head off to the pool for some swimming and relaxation.
With a busy itinerary in Japan we were all trying to make the most of a day of down time. As we literally only had the day of warm weather for our whole 3.5 week trip we’d decided to not bring all the usual tropical clothing items of rashies and hats. We made do with our pre-traveled in Tshirts as make shift rashies and we did apply copious amounts of sunscreen to try and stop getting too burnt.
Zinnia and Soren quickly made friends with any kids by the pool. Zinnia secured a new best friend, Alec, who was also 7 years old and was similarly having the day by the pool before flying on the same flight as us that night. Alec along with his parents Gene and Mayuko lived in Tokyo and were in transit from New Zealand. The kids had a great time playing together, sharing snacks, and keeping entertained with plenty of games of UNO out of the water and Marco Polo in the water.
Between reading by the pool, playing in the water, and some hammock time, the day whizzed by pretty fast. We tried to convince everyone to take it in turns napping in our room, before a very long night of travel ahead. We had varying success with this and about the only ones who were keen on naps were the adults.
Even if there wasn’t quite enough resting, we definitely made the most of some sunshine and warmth. We figured it was going to be the last bit of T-Shirt weather for awhile.
As we had to vacate our room by 6pm we made sure we were out of the pool and showered. It was time for cocktails by the pool. We had a good chat with Mayuko and Gene who were a wealth of knowledge about Japan, and invited us to catch up with them during our Tokyo stay at the end of our trip. Alec and Zinnia had played endlessly all day and were now firm friends.
Cocktails and an Indian feast….
The Mercure is on a street with plenty of restaurant options, but on every visit we’ve enjoyed and Indian restaurant across the road ‘Masala Twist’. We were all keen to re-visit and although they also have Thai and Pizza options, the Indian is top notch so we had our Indian fix with some cocktails for the adults and mocktails for the kids.
It felt like we could get into the relaxation of a tropical holiday but we were all excited for Japan and the inevitable not so warm weather. Sadly, a long night of travel awaited us.
Tokyo time…. almost!
Back at the Mercure, we hung out in reception with Alec, Gene and Mayuko and passed the time before we all got taxis to the airport. The taxis operated on Fiji time but did eventually turn up, just before 9pm. We were pretty quickly through security and immigration and were off to sit in the very loud departure lounge. Alec, Gene and Mayuko had lounge access so we bid them farewell until the flight, while we tried to pass the time waiting for boarding by either napping or googling all the random Pacific islands that the remaining flights for the night were headed off to. We discovered in this process that there are 2 different Christmas Island’s and neither of them are remotely close to each other!
The tiredness was starting to hit, and Anto go to be a lounge for the over-tired kids, but eventually it was time to board, and we were bidding farewell to Fiji already.
We were last flight out of Fiji for the night, our flight was supposed to go just before midnight, our boarding got delayed but finally got on the plane, all well and truly ready to be on our way. By now it was the 31st of December!
We had the 4 middle seats across the plane and Astrid on aisle across from us. Sadly there were no spare seats on this flight, so a bit more squishy it was. After take-off Zinnia was asleep pretty quick as was Soren. Anto and I had our middle of the night meal and didn’t sleep much due to wiggly kids. I guess it gave time for extra movies. After a small amount of not napping they served breakfast a few hours before end of the flight, and everyone had very little sleep in our 9 hours into Narita. On the upside we were now in Japan and ready for the main part of this trip!
Up next…
Landing in a chilly Narita, we had our first shinkansen, some excellent Mt Fuji views on the way to Kyoto and a whole bucketload of jet lag. Then there was Kyoto exploring – temples, gardens, Golden Pavilions and plenty of souvenir shopping to fill up those suitcases!
