Part 12 Japan 🇯🇵 Departure and Conclusion of the Entire Trip

Mon. 04/20/2026 to Tue. 04/21/2026

Departure Day and Trip Conclusion

Incredible but true. Unfortunately, our journey is coming to an end.

Our departure is technically not until tomorrow, as the flight is at 01:30 this night.

So it will be yet another very long journey home.

The alarm rang at 07:30, so we almost got to sleep in, as we've often gotten up much earlier here.

We had breakfast at the hotel, packed our things, and had to check out by 11 o'clock. We could store our luggage at the hotel as always and then first walked to the harbor, strolling through the fish market there. Then we went back to the beach and sat in the sun. It should be noted that today was the hottest of all days. Mount Fuji slowly said goodbye to us. At first, we could still see it in its entirety, but then it gradually hid behind the clouds until we could no longer even glimpse it.

Around 3 PM, we returned to the hotel, treated ourselves to a cake, and began our departure at 4 PM.

First, a 10-minute walk to Numazu Station, one stop to Mishima Station, and then departure at 6:24 PM for 45 minutes to Tokyo-Shinagawa, for the last time with a Shinkansen.

During the ride, we learned online about a strong earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale and a tsunami warning. While it mainly affected the north, it could still be felt in Tokyo. The news was full of it. We didn't notice anything. However, it was still a strange feeling, as we had just talked about tsunamis on the beach, since our last location is a highly vulnerable area and we saw evacuation routes everywhere. Additionally, some train lines were stopped, which almost affected us.

From Shinagawa, we still had to take the Keikyu Line to Haneda Airport. At Shinagawa Station, we experienced true Japanese life. There were hardly any tourists around. For example, we walked alongside masses of mainly business people through the station, and despite so many people, it was really quiet. Then we stood at the station. Various lines were departing, and it was incredibly crowded. Everyone was, of course, orderly standing in lines as usual, and then we saw for the first time how they squeezed into the trains. There was no attendant pushing from the outside, as you sometimes see in videos, but it was still extreme. Generally, it was a close fit in the trains, but not that intense yet.

We arrived at the airport around 8 PM and used a shower room. Super clean, spacious enough to open luggage, with shower gel, shampoo, towels, and a hairdryer included for 8 € for half an hour.

Then there was still plenty of time to walk around the really nice airport and decide what to eat from the large selection of restaurants. We ended up having a really good tonkatsu.

The check-in counter opened at 10:45 PM with a collective bow from the staff.

At 2 AM, we departed with a half-hour delay on an A330 from Asiana Airlines. We sat in the middle aisle, and the space was okay. The chicken served was also good. With a short flight time of 2 hours and 15 minutes, we landed almost on time at 4:15 AM and were already quite exhausted.

In Seoul, we first stretched out across some seats and actually dozed off a bit. We had to wait at the airport for 6:40 hours until the longest leg was supposed to begin at 10:50 AM. Actually, we're familiar with this; our arrivals and departures are often extremely long and exhausting because we always want to keep costs as low as possible, but this time we were quite worn out.

At 11:15 AM, we took off again with an A350 from Asiana Airlines and now said goodbye to Asia. The flight time of 13 hours and 35 minutes was indeed long.

At the moment I write this, we are still on the plane. Since I believe I will be too exhausted later to finish writing, I'm doing it now and trying to look into the future. Unless something significant changes, I will leave it as is or report again.

We are scheduled to land in Frankfurt around 5:50 PM. There, we will briefly meet a dear friend and take the train to Hanover at 8:15 PM.

We arrive at the train station at 11:05 PM. With the S-Bahn to the airport and then home with our car. We estimate that we will arrive around 12:30 AM.

That means:

• 48 hours without a bed and no real sleep.
• The entire journey from hotel to home: 39 1/2 hours.

CONCLUSION OF THE TRIP

An amazing, exciting, adventurous, exhausting, impressive trip lasting almost 8 weeks has now come to an end.

It's difficult to summarize the many impressions. You often get asked what you liked best. I think it's simply the many various mixed experiences; it was super interesting to observe these diverse cultures and try to understand them somehow. However, that would probably take years. Because we were first in China and then in Japan, we were almost constantly realizing that in Japan, it is exactly the opposite. That was somehow the most interesting part, how these countries can be so close to each other yet so different.

Of course, we preferred the Japanese. You often read about their ways beforehand, but I perhaps wouldn’t have believed it really is exactly like that. How wonderful they hold on to their traditions, and so much is very pleasant. For instance, people really don’t talk on the trains, they always stand neatly in lines behind one another, on escalators they always politely stand on the left side, allowing the hurried people to pass on the right (except in Osaka, where they stand on the right), they are friendly and polite, don’t push, and indeed bow excessively and are simply super sweet.

However, it was often quite annoying because almost everywhere was so incredibly crowded. The exhausting part is rather the many tourists who don’t always adhere to the numerous rules.

Main differences China vs. Japan in keywords:

Loud - quiet

Pushing - reserved

Mostly squat toilets - nice heated multifunction toilets

Spitting and disgusting sounds - one doesn't even blow their nose in public.

Food: not our style - everything delicious

So, this doesn’t mean we didn’t like China. It’s more about the behavioral differences.

For example, we found the train system to be more practical in China. Since there are incredibly many different line operators in Japan, it sometimes runs somewhat differently. We didn’t quite grasp some things until the end. But you can always ask briefly and everything works out.

It’s really important, if you want to go to Japan, to download the Suica Card (as mentioned in Part 1). It simplifies everything tremendously, making regular subway travel very straightforward. Only with long-distance travel it was sometimes hit or miss.

But in both countries it is a thousand times better than in our own.

We also continually discovered cool things in both countries, making you feel like you have traveled into the future or we are lagging behind far too much.

The payment system with Alipay in China is also much more practical. In Japan, you can sometimes pay with the Suica Card, sometimes only with a credit card, and sometimes only with cash.

You can manage a bit better with English in Japan. But you still sometimes need a translation app for the characters.

The sights everywhere were beautiful. So many lovely temple complexes, buildings, gardens, and the cherry blossom truly captivated us.

It was also incredibly clean everywhere. In China, cleaning is always happening, and in Japan, it’s not allowed to make a mess; perhaps that’s how you could put it. It’s a bit of an adjustment as a tourist that there are no trash cans in Japan, and sometimes you carry your trash around all day and also cannot eat while walking or in the subway, but that's fine.

Regarding our expenses in Japan, I can’t say much now; we have to sort that out someday as it involved so many different payment methods.

But one can certainly say it is much more expensive compared to China, but probably cheaper than it used to be not that long ago. Dining out is cheaper than in Germany, but not extremely.

I might add more here later.

So, I think that’s about enough for now.

A huge thank you for “sticking” with us and following along. It surely wasn’t always easy to read. I just wrote down what came to mind, mostly in a tired state.

Many heartfelt thanks!

Xie Xie

Arigato Gozaimasu