25 October 2025
No drama departure
Melbourne airport departure
It seems I have been dispatched to Japan to welcome in their first ever female prime minister, who may be an android, and possibly hopes to return to the glory days of world war 2.
To celebrate my arrival Japan de-valued their currency once more, meaning for mere pennies I can buy up huge swathes of historic castles.
Getting to this point, where I am sitting in the Singapore airlines lounge at Melbourne airport could not have been smoother.
I slept well, on the floor as I do, ran through the gauntlet of drunks to the awaiting Skybus (which did not break down) and then there were no lines anywhere at the airport.
So now it is time to spend about twice as long on 2 flights to Japan than is actually required because I insist on going through Singapore to save money rather than enjoying a direct flight.
The duty free, now run by South Korea in Melbourne, gets bigger every time I go through it. It is a tough sell to get me to buy something to carry around for hours and or a month depending on what it is. They do have the cheapest bottles of water in the airport, although of course I did not buy one.
Once you exit the duty free mall, there is nothing. A lot of nothing. Every shop is gone.
Not to worry, I headed into the Singapore airlines Silverkris lounge which has nowhere to use a computer comfortably and proceeded to wash my hands repeatedly to remove the layers of Skybus scum.
This left just enough time to have a free breakfast, and coat myself, my laptop and immediate surroundings in a thin layer of melted jam.
Now I will go for a walk before boarding.