A few friends had told me about the amazing Ghibli Museum in outer Tokyo - dedicated to the animated movies of Hiyao Miyazaki- and warned me that you need to book well in advance to get in. We booked through JTB online around 2 1/2 months before leaving and think they were sold out for our preferred day not long after. Being prepared sure had its reward. Spread over 3 floors, with a garden and giant robot statue on the roof dedicated to an earlier movie "Castle i...

Matilda's ears didn't survive the flight too well, so the first night was restless and she awoke with a fever and sore ear. Despite this, she put on a brave face, had some panadol, and agreed that a visit to a cat cafe might cheer her up. Exit 4 to the Azabu-Juban underground line was just across the small street from the entrance to our apartment block, so we easily followed the signage for the Oedo Line toward Yoyogi, and transferred there for another train to ...

Our 10 hour flight from Melbourne to Tokyo was not as torturous as I'd feared, everyone even managed to get a few hours sleep. On arrival, we whizzed through customs, caught a shuttle bus to Narita's Terminal 2 and found the post office where we picked up our portable wi-fi gizmo. A very helpful gent at the information counter helped us buy some "Pasmo" cards (put ¥5000 on each to last 4 days) to allow us to travel on all rail within Tokyo (despite my pitif...

Arrived back in the midst of Melbourne winter, and to top it off, the kids had been talking about snow that morning, and what do you know - we had snow (or sleet) on the freeway outside Ballarat. We had mixed feelings thinking about getting back to reality and I'm personally looking forward to getting a book printed up of the trip so we can all flick through from time to time to remind ourselves of the incredible experience we've had over the last few months. I...

Headed straight into Adelaide on our last leg of the trip, and after sitting in roadworks in Port Wakefield for half an hour, went straight to my uncle Alan's house to catch up with him and my cousin Pete, who had very fortuitously arrived from Sydney with Julie and family just the day before. It was a wonderful detour - the kids had a terrific time reconnecting, and we had a brief but lovely catch up on current events.The smell of home was too strong to stay in ...