OUR LAST FLIGHT HOME TO QUARANTINE: JAPAN TO SYDNEY

We were heading home to Sydney, Australia from Japan, and not a moment too soon it seemed. Qantas and Virgin had announced major cuts to flights, the Australia Government had asked Australians to come home, and all over the world borders were closing. People were dying, so many more were sick and the reality of what we were facing as a global community had really hit home for us. After spending five days in Tokyo and being in our Club Med bubble for 10 days, we were stepping into the unknown.

We took a private taxi from Club Med Tomamu to Sapporo Airport – a fab airport with Reece’s chocolates, a Hello Kitty Flying School for kids and much more. I had a coffee, stocked up on chocolate and Emmie bought some Little Twin Stars bits and bobs. Soon enough we  jumped on our JAL flight and arrived in Haneda, Tokyo at 8pm that evening.

Our original flight direct to Sydney from Sapporo had been cancelled a week earlier. I’d discovered it by accident and eventually had been able to make contact with Qantas over Twitter and we’d been re-booked onto these flights. It wasn’t a problem at all for us, we were happy to be on another flight home.

Our bags had been checked all the way through to Sydney and so all we had to do was leave the domestic airport and take a bus over to international. It’s super easy and the airports are close so within a few stress-free minutes we were in international departures. So far so good and there had been no fuss at all. Some people were wearing masks but many like us were not.

We found the gate for Qantas flight QF26 and I went on a hunt for food, as Emmie ALWAYS gets a Burger King burger at airports consisting of bun, meat, lettuce and onion. There was no Burger King (wahh) and the only burger option I could find was $30 – the Australian dollar was falling hard – and on my way back to tell her the sad news I was sure I heard her name called over the airport PA system.

“Emmie! I’m so sorry there’s no burgers – but your name has just been called out, let me go check what’s happening.”

“Oh mum maybe we got an upgrade!” she said excitedly.

Ha. Ha.

I grabbed the passports and walked over to the service desk at the gate.

“Hi, my daughter’s name was called out so I’m guessing mine was too,” I said, handing them the passports. “She was hoping maybe we were given an upgrade?” I added, thinking it wouldn’t hurt to plant the seed…and wondering why I hadn’t used our points to upgrade the flight.

“We need to confirm you know about the 14 day quarantine in Australia,” the lady answered. “Have you organised your quarantine?”

“Yes I have,” I told her. We had organised everything from transport from Sydney airport, to collecting a car from my parents (who were shopping and stocking it with supplies) and driving to my beautiful friend Jonica’s on the Central Coast. She had generously offered me and Emmie her family’s poolhouse for the quarantine, and we were all ready to go.

“Have you been in China, Iran or Italy?”

“No we haven’t…so it’s not an upgrade then?” I asked hopefully.

Nope.

A little while later we boarded  – early – and Emmie and I had three seats between us. Passengers were spread out and some had four seats to themselves. I reckon the plane was about 60% full.

We wiped down our seats, tray tables and headrests and as soon as we were up in the air Emmie fell asleep. I sanitised constantly thoughout the flight,especially after touching anything or using the bathroom.

The Captain was super friendly and told us how this was his last 747 flight, that he had flown one of the rescue missions into Wuhan and how it was an uncertain time for everyone but that Qantas was proud to bring us home. He praised his crew and made a special mention of Jacqui who was on her final flight as a Qantas flight attendant.

The staff were kind and attentive. It must be super tough. Especially when the flight wasn’t just full of Aussie families coming home from Japan ski holidays. There were people from Europe and Asia who had made connections through Japan to get into Australia – and no one had been temperature checked before the flight. It was a little worrying.

We were relying on every single person on the flight – and on every flight coming into Australia – to do the right thing and quarantine.

On arrival into Australia  – an hour early due to no air traffic and an early departure from Tokyo – we disembarked we were reminded about the quarantine and given a sheet of paper with information about virus symptoms.

There wasn’t practical information though. Of course it’s LOGICAL that if you are going into quarantine that you don’t interact with anyone, but how do people get home from the airport? What was recommended? I couldn’t find info but had been told that Uber was okay and that’s what I planned to do.

NOTE; I’ve since been sent a link to this NSW Health Fact Sheet and it’s full of excellent info on home isolation/quarantine.

I’ve since heard of people stopping off to do the shopping on the way home, going to supermarkets, butchers and fruit and veg shops. Some people really need logical process spelt out to them. We need basic information so people stop doing this and putting others at risk.

There were no checks as we passed through immigration but we were again reminded to quarantine. And we were able to stop and grab some duty free essentials.

And then we were through and I booked an Uber. He arrived and I loaded the bags – as Uber policy during this time is to not touch anything like luggage etc. We also drove with the windows open.

Because we were early our plans for picking up the car from my parents had changed a bit – now we would both arrive at a new pick up point at the same time (we had planned for mum and dad to leave the car and go home as it would be too upsetting for them to see Emmie and not be able to hug her).

And we did and it was okay. We kept about 5 metres distance and had virtual hugs and a few laughs. And then we drove off on our two hour trip to the Central Coast and Jonica…