Flying from Tokyo Narita to Auckland with Air New Zealand

A departures board at Narita airport. Photo / Getty Images

The plane: A Dreamliner 787-9. Still the coolest thing in the skies.

Class: Economy

The seat: Economy Class seats have a 31 to 32-inch pitch and a 17.2-inch width. There's an AC power charger.

How full: I couldn't spot an unused seat. No wonder they've increased service to Tokyo by landing at Haneda (which is nearer to the city).

Fellow passengers: A little more than half of the crowd in Economy were Asian travellers, obviously the vast majority Japanese.

After I get changed into my regular flying kit (comfy black pyjama bottoms and a black Amy Winehouse T-shirt), the elderly Japanese woman seated in front of me mistakes me for a staff member in the dimmed cabin lights. Just for what I believe young people call "the lolz", I play along.

Her husband rumbles my gag when I ask him if he'd like another glass of wine. Then we all have some more of those lolz — they transcend any language.

Service: Prompt, efficient and cheerful. None of the staff, from what I could see, were wearing comfy black pyjama bottoms and a black Amy Winehouse T-shirt.

Food and drink: We had a very smart teriyaki chicken and a good Japanese beef with beans. Flying out of Tokyo, the green tea is real green tea, not the bag-out-of-a-box variety I'm used to at home. Hai!

Entertainment: My travel buddy and I hooked up on Air New Zealand's screen share system to watch Poi E. If you haven't watched it yet, then put down this newspaper (or turn off this app, or whatever) and go watch it at once. A glorious celebration of Kiwidom.

Airport experience: After a fruitless search for good, cheap Japanese whisky in the duty free shops of Narita, we found a bottle of superb Suntory in the ANA lounge. And that wasn't even the best thing about the lounge: there's this old dude making sushi. You're only allowed two pieces at a time but the queue comes and goes quickly. I love it when an airport lounge has a unique thing about it — this was a delightful way to farewell our long weekend in Tokyo.