The big test facing Newcastle United in Japan as Bruno Guimaraes joins squad

A journey that started in Newcastle at 9am (BST) on Saturday morning via a 2-0 friendly win at Hull City is now complete at 4pm (local time) on Monday afternoon with Newcastle’s pre-season in full swing.

Fuelled only by Juneyao Airlines’ finest in-flight economy meals and almost zero sleep, our hard work starts now with The Magpies in action against Urawa Red Diamonds at the Saitama Stadium on Wednesday and Yokohama F. Marinos at the Tokyo National Stadium on Saturday. There’s also an open training session to lok out for.

We’ll be bringing you updates from Eddie Howe, player interviews, match analysis and a behind-the-scenes view on all things happening around Newcastle United in The Land of the Rising Sun.

In the first diary entry of the tour, here’s a look at The Gazette’s journey to Japan - you can also watch us document it in the video above...

It was straight to Manchester Airport following the Hull friendly for an overnight stay before the 11-hour flight over to Shanghai. Just as we stepped on the plane, Newcastle confirmed the squad list for the trip.

As revealed by The Gazette, Anthony Gordon and Kieran Trippier missed the trip but there was a place for Sandro Tonali, who can’t play in either friendly match. While the Italian can train, head coach Eddie Howe admitted training time would be minimal over in the Far East.

Miguel Almiron, Fabian Schar and Martin Dubravka travelled with the squad following international duty while Bruno Guimaraes flew from South America and has now joined up with his team-mates for the first time since Australia.

After getting on the flight on Sunday morning, it was Monday morning by the time we touched down in China for our onward flight to Tokyo.

Long queues and wifi issues thwarted any chance of any more work being done during the three-hour wait at Shanghai Airport. But after a comparatively brief two-and-a-half-hour plane to Tokyo, Japanese wifi on the JR-East train came to the rescue!

From Narita Airport it was another hour or so on the train into Shinjuku in the heart of Tokyo where Newcastle are based. First impressions of Tokyo is that it’s absolutely sweltering with a heat warning issued.

Temperatures at the time of writing are a not so cool 38°C. And that will be the big test facing Eddie Howe’s players, who just beat us into Tokyo in their flight from Newcastle via Uzbekistan.

But we’ll be doing our best to catch up and keep everyone up to date over the next week in Tokyo - stay tuned!