The thrilling thing about a thirteen hour flight between Heathrow and Narita is its sheer, terrifying length. When the trip was planned, we made sure the outbound flight was in the evening, aligned with Kai's natural sleep time. Of course, he wasn't going to sleep for the full duration, but at least a good part of it.
Most of his goodwill was sadly expended in the hours spent at the airport, but he finally drifted into the realm of dreams after an hour or so into the flight. It didn't stop him from stirring from time to time, suddenly screaming without warning. This was the beginning of our new dependence on a dummy - we kept ramming it into his mouth at the first sign of trouble. This has probably left Kai a bit too dependent on it, something we have been fixing since returning to the UK.
Aki and - unusually - I slept through most of the flight. Eventually, we arrived in a country I hadn't seen for nearly five years.
This flight was how we spent our fifth wedding anniversary.