By this time, I'd more or less lost track of the time, so I think we were on time, but couldn't really swear to it. Not quite caffeinated enough to consider myself fully awake, I remember walking along some long, glassy corridors, so assume we were at quite a far away gate. Naturally, all the travelators were working. This may not sound remarkable, depending on where you come from. That leg-stretch, combined with me regretting the volume of cabin luggage we had with us, was a welcome freshener before we arrived into a very burgundy-carpeted arrivals area, my son a little too curious about the IR cameras pointed our way as we were screened for whatever nastiness we may risk bringing to the country.

We had dutifully done our VJW forms, so were directed, QR codes in hand, to the now huge bank of VJW machines, together with 90% of the other arriving foreigners (the exception being groups of people on work visas). Me & MrsStut were all scanned in and given our route letters (which I stood pretty much zero chance of remembering in a post red-eye state) but my son "failed" his which panicked him a little - completely unnecessarily, of course. Particularly as, despite the route letters, there was only one way through for foreigners anyway. This queue was far slower, and the room particularly hot and sweaty, despite the queuee not being that long. One young woman near us near passed out from it, and nobody seemed to do anything, so my first spoken Japanese in Japan (since learning some Japanese) was a shouted すみません、この女性は具合が悪い in a loud voice. I've no idea if the register or anything was correct, but it got things moving. She was fine, just needed a seat and some water. I went on struggling with eSim activation.

Whole process took about an hour. I've had worse. Got to the luggage carousel just as the last bags from our flight were coming out, and it stopped. Our bags weren't there. Oh no. I spoke to someone who took me to someone who took me to someone who told me that, as they were priority bags, they'd been taken off the carousel for me and were waiting on the other side. Phew. Did I miss a sign, or is this an expectations I was missing? Either way, bags here. VJW did actually seem to be useful for customs, as we just scanned and waltzed (again, other dances are available) through and into Japan. We've arrived!

We'd booked a 24h room at the Villa Fontaine Grand Haneda (not to be confused with the Villa Fontaine Premier Haneda) which was an extremely useful concept - you get the room for 24h from check-in, whatever time of day you arrive. So, arrive off an AM flight and time it right, and you get a day room to shower and recuperate in, breakfast the next morning and check-out when you normally would anyway. So we delayed check-in slightly with coffee and getting my son's child Suica card. Ours were on our phones - which took much jiggery-pokery for my Pixel. You can get a child Suica card at Haneda (we could equally have got a Pasmo, but the penguin is far cuter, and this is clearly the factor to decide on) from the Monorail ticket desk. You have to go to the barriers, ask for it, show a passport, then come round to the Suica-issuing ticket machine, where the man sticks his head through the hatch, enables child vending mode and lets you go for it. Anyway, we chose to go through with this oddly complex process while there was no queue and, seeing the queue at the Monorail when we returned later, this was a good decision.

The Villa Fontaine Grand (and the Premier, it turns out), is in a shopping centre along a corridor/bridge from the arrivals hall, and very easy to reach. Clocked the Lawson by the entrance (yes, we'll be back here) and checked in with some assistance. It's a huge hotel - any hotel with multiple banks of lifts counts as huge in my book. And it's great that you can take airport luggage trolleys right up to the lobby. The room we'd booked was a Japanese-Western style, as it was one where you could easily sleep 3 people, and it had two low beds and a tatami area with made up futons and a table and floor-chairs. All very crisp and clean, though my back was longing for a full size seat at the time. The futons were not soft. And this isn't my first futon. However, it turned out that's exactly what my back needed, and I was all spritely and mobile come the next morning.

Anyway, we dosed up on teas and coffees, popped down to the Lawson to stock up for later on, showered, lay around for a bit, then headed off into Tokyo on the Keikyu Line. By this time in the morning, annoyingly, the trains were arriving into T3 already full with passengers from T1/2, so we were standing to Shinagawa, where were decided more coffee and food would see us right. We did manage a full day's eating and sightseeing, which I was pleased about, and opted to take a slightly more circuitous route back to the airport via the Monorail. This turned out to be a great decision, as we were seated all the way, and the view from the Monorail kept us all awake. The airport was - and I believe this is the common term in Japan - hoaching like Sauchiehall Street when we got back.

My son off to sleep in the hotel room, I set off to get something for us to eat (we do a fine line in sitting-on-the-edge-of-the-bath meals in hotels). Sushi was the obvious choice for "hey, we're in Japan" vs being easy to eat on the edge of a bathtub. Lawson had sold out. So I headed up to the 4F in the Terminal, which has a fantastic array of places to eat. However, they are not fans of making takeaways. So I headed back to see what I could cobble together from the Lawson, only to discover... A sushi place just behind the hotel that did takeaways. Ordered a set, took it back, and it was excellent, though my ability to tell excellent food was probably somewhat diminished due to my state of tiredness. Though the pollock roe was not for me.

Breakfast was outstanding here - and I'm not just biased by the availability of an ice cream machine. Really good range of Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and "Western" dishes. I will always enjoy fish and rice for breakfast, so it's easy for me, and my son will always tuck right into a buffet breakfast.

Checked out and handed the bags over to be sent into Tokyo. I ended up pre-booking Airporter for this, rather than carting the bags back to the terminal. They undercut Yamato and JALABC for the same-day transfers, and were well reviewed. We had considered the new Ecbo delivery service from the T3 station, but it doesn't open until 9am, which was too late for us. Hence our choice. They had the Airporter tags at the baggage desk too. Great service - got emails with pictures of the bags and their progress, and they were at the hotel by 2pm, well before we arrived. Honestly, luggage forwarding is just so good.

The trains into Tokyo weren't so busy as it was a Saturday, so we had seats for the slightly longer journey (Ltd Exp but not as Ltd as on a weekday) up to Asakusa. This was very welcome! And so into Japan...