It was around the third hour of construction noise at Western Sydney International Airport that it felt like a bad idea to spend an entire day at the terminal.

The plan was simple enough: Sydney has a brand-new airport , and the Herald wanted to know what the terminal experience was like. And what better way to test it than to spend a full day there without a flight?

We imagined something akin to the 2004 Tom Hanks film The Terminal , where a man is stuck living at an airport. The difference here is that Tom Hanks was stranded at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, and I am stuck at Western Sydney International. This is how the day unfolded.

Spending a day at Western Sydney International Airport was not quite what Mostafa Rachwani expected. Wolter Peeters

10am: Arrival

My Uber drops me off at the designated taxi stand and I take in my home for the next few hours.

The airport’s a lovely sight, all wooden beams and sleek finishes , like a mid-century modern spaceship.…