It’s 6am Sunday, out the window in the drizzling grey and perfectly formed line of school children, two deep, are orderly walking up the street from the station. The crossing ahead is red, they remain perfectly queued for 50 meters, patiently waiting in their line and in the rain. That earnest demeanour of our taxi driver last night is being honed right in front of me.

We were once at a breakfast buffet with unlimited watermelon, Boo lost all composure. This morning Fid almost reached that same level – a breakfast buffet with French Fries! Off into the rain, this morning’s challenge is getting to Kyoto, and deciphering the rail system. We’re at Narita station but find out we need to get Tokyo station to collect our tickets, from where we are it’s just over an hour on the “rapid” express train, we’re getting some idea of scale around here.

At Tokyo station, we hit the Rail Pass Exchange queue, us and a hundred other ill-informed travellers that left it until mid-morning to do the exchange. Fid is working the language at every opportunity, ordering his own beef bento box in the subway, then we’re on to the Shinkansen. No speedo on this one robbed us of the 320km/h selfie, but that blazing countryside more than made up for it.

Our hotel in Kyoto is run on a force.com hosted completely human free management system. Sounds cool, but it means asking for an early check-in is impossible, clever! We scramble for luggage lockers, then head off to find some Sakura! We're on our way to the Imperial Palace until we pass a bike guy. Bing!

Max and I ride, Emerson does very occasionally, Gab not for 30 years. With the wincing sting of regret already corrupting her smile, she threw her leg over and instantly and bravely headed off. It’s been 30 years and in that time it’s easy to forget the physics of momentum, well apparently it is anyway. Push wobble wobble, feet down. Push wobble wobble, feet down. Push wobble wobble, feet down. “How much further?”

Later that night Gab and I were in tears laughing at the antics on our bikes. But in that moment I shudder to think what would have happened if I’d breached the blast zone with any of the jokes running through my head. I kept my distance and we pushed on. I remember when I first got on a bike as an adult a few years ago, I had a little panic attack as the bike approached 10km/h. That was on a quiet street at 5 in the morning. Here my princess is, in bustling traffic, crowded 1m wide footpaths making her way around the centre of a very busy city, what a legend.

We ride along the river with the blossoms in full bloom, it really is magnificent. We come across an old part, but not Gion. There is stream with bridges criss-crossing it and people everywhere. The blooms really are everything they’re portrayed as, we’re all convinced we’re heading home to plant a cherry blossom.

We bike up to the Heian Shrine. Passing another river we find a perfect spot for a pano. Then on to the big gate. We watched some locals then copied the water cleansing before entering. What a magnificent space, Max heads straight in, again copying the locals at a wishing well inside the temple – throw in a coin, bow, and a single clap. It may be Shinto by observation, but he looks like he knows exactly what he’s doing.

There is a Sakura garden wrapping around the temple, we take a stroll around the garden ooing and ahhing at every stop. We’re snapping away like a bunch of Japanese tourists, I guess that’s exactly what we are.

It’s getting dark and time to go find our hotel. To hear Gab tell it, I’ve made her bike from one end of this island nation to the other. But even google said it was a half hour drive back to the bike shop, the mounting Sunday evening traffic was slowing everything down. We get lost, take a few wrong turns, run into a guy, smash into a wall, rip a cardigan, laugh, cry, panic, ache, complain, get lost, find our way out and finally get the bikes back. Sweet Victory.

We’re in a laneway, standing out the front of our unmanned hotel. We can’t work out the code to get in. We’re tired, hungry, a bit chilly – all four of us are at our cooperative best. Our Escape Room skills have failed us, we can’t understand the code system. Someone tries a reinterpretation and we’ve cracked it, we’re through the front door and standing in the foyer. An iPad greets us with cryptic instructions, four different sets of numbers, all with names that end in "code" conflate to drag this process out way past that point of charming novelty. But eventually we’re out of problem 2 and onto problem 3, where is the lift? We find our room, it’s already unlocked, clever! Or a mistake and this isn’t our room – who cares there are clean beds in there head in!

We dump our bags and head to Gion for the evening. What a beautiful old area, we should have organised a guide to help better appreciate what we’re experiencing. It’s all so engrossing, it’s 8:30 before we realise we haven’t given the kids food since lunch time. I couldn’t convince them all we should have dinner in the saki bar, so we’re into a much more reputable looking place for a quick dinner – last orders are in 10 minutes.

We cross the river to the other side and walk for a little looking at the Sakura all lit up at night, wonderful stuff. Beautiful way to end the day.