School trip to Japan with egg allergy

Mum and son Jo and Nathan shared this story in each of their own words, about how they worked together with Nathan’s school to plan an overseas school trip for Nathan when he was in Year 11.

A parent’s perspective: from Jo

In April 2024, my 16 year old son with an egg allergy took a trip to Japan with his school. They were away for 12 days and visited Osaka, Hiroshima, Kyoto and Tokyo.

When the opportunity for a trip to Japan with his modern history class arose, my son was keen to go. This trip also provided the opportunity to visit a couple of Japanese schools and play soccer with their students. As history and soccer are two of his passions, I didn’t want him to miss out because of his food allergy, and so the research began into travelling to Japan with an egg allergy. In Japan egg is commonly used, such as being added raw to the top of boiled rice or in a soup, so we had to ensure that he could eat safely to attend this trip.

We had a year’s notice on the trip, so over the months I communicated with the school, and the teachers were amazing and very encouraging for my son to attend. I was able to have conversations with the tour company too, who had managed students from other schools with food allergies. Through all of this research and planning, we allowed our son to travel to Japan and used the following ways to keep him safe:

1. Packed food to take
   • I sent tins of spaghetti and baked beans (one for each day along with a disposable fork) and boxes of muesli bars. These he could easily pop into his backpack for the day and did not need heating etc.
2. Work with the tour company
   • The tour provided a guide who was with them all the time and attended every restaurant to communicate his egg allergy. The only day the guide was not with them was at Tokyo Disneyland, so my son packed food for that day and used the translated Japanese Chef Cards from the A&AA website to assist with ordering food.
3. Researching fast food online
   • My son safely eats McDonald’s in Australia so we did research into the Japanese McDonald’s website and found items he could safely eat in Japan, as they have ingredient lists available online which was a convenient back up. [Note from A&AA: it is important to be aware that fast food outlets can have different ingredients for the same product in different countries]
4. Medications
   • My son packed three EpiPens with an up-to-date ASCIA Action Plan, his antihistamines and had medical documentation from his GP which included an ASCIA Travel Plan and a list of medications he was travelling with. He kept these handy while on the plane and in his backpack for his daily tours.

With all this planning, my son returned full of stories and empowered to feel comfortable with travelling again, knowing that with research he can enjoy an overseas trip. He also tried new foods especially in the seafood range (which he is not allergic to).

The student’s perspective: from Nathan

Hi, my name is Nathan and I have an egg allergy.

Last year, I had the opportunity to go on a school trip for 2 weeks to Japan.

To say it was incredible is an understatement, as there is so much I could say about it but for this purpose, it’s about my allergy and how I handled it.

Building up towards Japan, I had many meetings with the teachers who were going on the trip about my allergy and how best to manage it. Japan is a country known for using egg in its food so naturally, a lot of preparation was needed to make sure there were things I could eat over there. In case there wasn’t, I brought canned spaghetti with me as something to eat as a last resort in case I had nothing to eat. Luckily for me, McDonald’s was an option but was limited to fries and hash browns, and the soft drinks, but it still tasted very good. 

I also got to have Domino’s pizza, however I was a bit nervous as I know very little Japanese so I feared communication would be very hard. It ended up that I was able to order a pizza which could safely be prepared and allowed me to eat it. And for those wondering, yes it was very good.

We did also have a tour guide which did help communicating with the restaurants which we ate at so I could always have something to eat, which in every case, there was and there were surprisingly very few things I couldn’t eat. Japan also had me trying foods I would never imagine me eating like squid and a large variety of fish, but they were all delicious and I would highly recommend. [Note from A&AA: Nathan does not have allergies to seafood].

Overall, while it did seem to be a very big challenge and my Mum was indeed very worried, I got through with no problems whatsoever and had an amazing trip.

It may seem daunting at times but as long as you know what you can eat and you do your best to communicate, you will always have something to eat and will be able to enjoy Japan and every bit about it.