YEP, DEFINITELY TURNING JAPANESE!Our journey to Osaka meant our first trip on a Shinkansen (bullet train). Tokyo station is huge and the Shinkansen run from lots of different lines so we decided it would be best to check with one of the station masters which platform we needed. Before he would give us directions, however, he insisted we both take a gift of a plastic ruler bearing pictures of fours different bullet trains (unusual souvenir). The railway staff are amazing. The ticket inspector bows to the carriage as he enters and leaves and so does the hostess on the drinks trolley. When the train gets into the station the staff wait until everyone gets off and then bow to the train as it leaves the station. Even the train cleaning teams are amazing. As we walked down the platform we saw a team of about twenty cleaners in immaculate uniforms turn the entire train around in about 10 minutes. They wiped every seat, table, and windowsill, emptied every bin, changed every headrest cover and physically spun around every set of seats in 15 carriages to face the opposite direction. The area where we are staying in Osaka is a bit rundown - lots of homeless people and drunks. We even attempted to foil a shoplifter in the Family Mart the other day but sadly by the time the shop assistant worked out my "shoplifter" charade he had legged it with a coffee, a sandwich and a seaweed-rice wrap. We've visited some amazing places. We've been to Nara which has acres of beautiful park and woodland with dozens of temples and thousands of roaming deer. We've been in to Kyoto several times and even spotted a few Geisha in Gion. We've traveled along the coast through Kobe and, of course, we've been into Osaka itself. We're going to be really sad to leave Japan - it is our favourite place so far.Next stop Ho Chi Minh City (AKA Saigon - via 2 nights back in Tokyo and 2 nights back in Hong Kong)….