Prime Minister Julia Gillard will arrive in Japan for talks with political and business leaders and a likely tour of areas hit hard by the devastating tsunami.
Ms Gillard is due to land in Tokyo, ahead of meetings on Thursday with Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, Prime Minister Naoto Kan and other senior officials.
She will hold more meetings on Friday before attending a sold-out gala relief fundraising dinner that night.
On Saturday, she hopes to tour communities hit by the tsunami.
"I am intending, if it's possible, to go and look at some of the communities that have been so hard hit by the huge natural disaster," Ms Gillard said on Tuesday.
"It's just so hard to get your mind around the scale of it."
Japan is just the first leg of a 10-day trip which will also take the prime minister to South Korea, China and Britain.
While trade and other economic links will dominate much of the north Asian meetings, Ms Gillard on Tuesday confirmed she would raise the prickly issue of human rights with China's leaders.
"I raised human rights as recently as the last few weeks when Mr Jia (Qinglin) - a senior communist party official - was here," Ms Gillard said.
"So, I anticipate that I will be raising human rights in China as part of these broad and comprehensive discussions."
Japan, South Korea and China are Australia's top three export destinations and three of Australia's top four trading partners overall. Australia is negotiating Free Trade Agreements with all three nations.
