Home now.

So another Japan trip has come and gone in a whirlwind of crowded trains, amazing scenery and sleeping on the floor.

Today was, without a doubt, the most painful day of the trip. Not emotionally painful, because we're well and truly ready to come home, but painful because today, and by extension yesterday (since both days have blurred into one) was simply travel, and not much else.

After collecting the last of our things from the floor of the Co-op inn room (since that is the only place to put them) we checked out, but left our baggage downstairs. We decided to have McDonalds for breakfast, and found something in the Japanese McDonalds which seems to be common to all McDonalds around the world at some time or another. A crazy person.

In Japan though, at least the crazy persons are polite and respectful. This one walked in a triangle pattern in the main foyer of the restaurant in front of the registers, for a good 15 minutes, mumbling something. I couldn't understand what he was mumbling, since it was in Japanese, but it sure looked crazy, and gathered a little crowd to watch it all happen. McDonalds breakfasts however, are excellent in Japan. Their McMuffins are pork instead of beef for their "sausage" McMuffins, and the chilli dog was surprisingly pretty good too.

After breakfast with a crazy person, today was purely devoted to killing time until departure at 8:50pm. In hindsight a night time departure isn't the best idea for 2 reasons. The first reason is that the entire day of departure is centred around getting to the airport on time and getting on the plane. There is no time to schedule anything meaningful, so an entire day is wasted. The second reason is that I've confirmed with no uncertainty that I can't sleep on planes (in cattle class anyway). If this had been a daytime flight where we were awake to make use of the entertainment, complimentary meals and drinks, and better service, I'd have paid for business class without hesitation, but I couldn't justify the extra $800 just for a nicer seat to sleep in.

A little tip. If you can get Jetstar "business class" at a reasonable price during a sale, do it. Even though it is just a premium economy class in comparison to other airlines, the difference between it and Jetstar's economy class is laughable.

Following breakfast, we browsed through parts of Kyoto's shopping malls which we hadn't been to yet (which after the last few days, honestly isn't much). Buying small souvenirs and cool knick-knacks to take back to Australia soaked up enough time to last us until lunch. One final outing to our favourite vending machine restaurant for delicious lunches, and sadly it was time to begin making our way back to the hotel to pick up the bags.

For the last time we pulled the rail passes from their sleeve, and booked tickets from Kyoto to Kansai airport. Booking and navigating the rail system is becoming far too simple and routine, which is another indication that we've overcome some of the interesting and fun challenges that being a newbie in Japan provides. When the transportation becomes too easy and just routine, I know we've stayed too long.

The train was an "express" train from Kyoto to Kansai, stopping at only 2 Osaka stations before arriving at Kansai a little over 2 hours later. Since we arrived quite early at the airport, we had quite a bit of time to kill, which honestly passed quite quickly. After browsing the airport shops, including another 100 yen store, and grabbing some dinner, we were down to our last few hundred yen. Once again our spending money estimations were exactly accurate, and a trip to the airport Lawsons convenience store for the last sandwich of the trip, and a few in-flight nibbles, saw us left with exactly 46 yen.

The flight was exactly how I expected it to be. Unpleasant. Although it wasn't quite as unpleasant as it could have been, due to a bank of 3 spare seats in Veronica's row, of which we claimed 2. So at least when the people in front put their seats back (which in economy class means that the seat-back in front of you almost touches your nose) we still had room to sit across 2 seats, so we were more comfortable than we might have been.

Still, as I found out on the last overnight flight 3 years ago, I can't sleep on planes. Admittedly it was better this time, without having to nurse a 3 year old Angela on my lap for 8 hours, but it was still uncomfortable. Hours and hours spend dozing in 20 minute blocks, with 45 minutes awake in between, isn't fun. I think I'll be opting for daytime flights in future.

Once we landed at Gold Coast airport, we gathered our things, and shuffled towards the customs gates. This is another little benefit of Business Class: express departure. As we did at Kansai airport on the way over, business class exits the plane before the unwashed peasants, and is therefore able to get through the customs and inspection gates much, much faster.

We were keen to get through customs and baggage pick-up because we had Gold coast lounge access included with our tickets. We were however, stuck in the quarantine inspection line for 35 minutes because we had 2 little wooden plaques that the girls were given at Hida No Sato. They had no problems with the food or drink we were bringing back in, nor were they worried about Veronica's iphone which exceeded the duty free amount (and I expected we'd have to pay GST on when re-entering, since we claimed the TRS on the way over) but thankfully they let that slip.

Gold Coast customs baggage inspection have to be, without a doubt, the slowest moving group of people I've ever seen. No doubt they do a great job of protecting our borders, and have to be thorough, but there was 15+ people working, and not one of them moved with any urgency. They stood together, chatted, looked through the contents of bags, and walked between inspection stations which honestly, from a distance, looked like it was slowed down to 2/3 speed using video special effects. I would have filmed it if I were allowed to take the camera out, it was honestly that comical.

One thing that kept us amused was one woman over at the furthest inspection bench, absolutely going berserk. Crying, screaming, and generally throwing her luggage and the contents around, while the customs officer stayed as calm and straight faced as a London palace guard. We guessed, from what we could ascertain from a distance, that something in her luggage, possibly a Japanese doll or something else ceramic, had broken when opening her bag for inspection, and the customs officer was not being at all helpful or sympathetic about it. The more she cried, the more bags he asked her to open.

Once we reached our inspection station, determined not to cry or throw things, we explained why we were there (the 2 little wooden things) and said that we were happy to bin them if required. After a 10 second look, the guy, who was very official, but also quite friendly, asked me to open my bag for a random inspection (since it was the biggest I'm guessing). After examining the contents and finding no bags of drugs or Nara deer, he thanked us and allowed us to continue on. Ours was the quickest customs inspection I witnessed.

While we were in the customs line, there was a direct route to the exit, where people who had ticked all "No"s on their customs declaration were allowed to go. I still maintain that it is a fairly silly system where those who don't declare anything are allowed to walk unopposed through the exit, and yet those who are honest and actually declare things to customs are the ones who are subjected to a baggage inspection.

On our way out of the customs area, I must have been looking suspicious, and was grabbed by a really friendly guy for a random baggage explosive detection test. He swabbed my baggage and clothes before declaring me a non-terrorist and bidding us farewell.

Forced to wait until 2 hours before check-in, we checked our baggage for the connecting flight to Sydney. After some searching I found the surprisingly well camouflaged Jetstar Gold coast lounge. Despite the surly old lady working behind the food counter, it was very good, and well worth the $10 entry fee (with Angela free being under 7). All the food and drink we could eat, free internet and comfortable seats passed the few hours very quickly before it was time to board the flight to Sydney. After an uneventful flight to Sydney, we touched down to be met by our youngest, and ultra excited daughter Isabelle, and our parents.

Retrospective

If I had to highlight my favourite bits of the trip, as well as mentioning bits that I'm not sorry to be leaving behind, it would be something like:

Bits of Japan that we'll miss:

• Amazing scenery and attractions. We saw a few more things that we missed on our last Japan tour, such as snow as Shirakawago, and many of these things will not be forgotten. I'll never forget the looks on my girls faces as they ran across the bridge at Shirakawago just as it began to snow. Moments like that make the whole trip worth it, and there were many of them both on this trip and the last.

• Cultural differences. As painful as some aspects of Japanese life can be (please no more futons and green tea), a society based around the ideals of respect is a very pleasant change. Little things, like staff welcoming you into a restaurant, and thanking you with enthusiasm when you leave, and train conductors bowing when they enter and exit every train carriage, every time, are subtle but pleasantly eye opening examples of the bits of Japanese society that I love.
  

• The food. Oh good grief, don't get me started on the food. Just read the previous entries in both this blog and the 2008 Japan tour to have some idea of what I'm talking about.

• Convenience store sandwiches and coffee milk. Freshly made daily sandwiches, the favourite of which is ham, cucumber and wasabe mayonnaise, are surprisingly delicious. I know it sounds mundane, but don't knock it until you've tried it. Forget everything you know about convenience store food when thinking about the offerings in Japan. Fresh sandwiches, hot and cold food, bento, a huge range of bread products, all at supermarket prices (plus or minus a few yen). And I'll really miss the cold coffee milk in Japan. Real coffee, in so many different brands and varieties, will be very missed. See you at some time in the future Blendy.

Aspects of Japan that we're not going to lose any sleep over:

• Sleeping, eating and generally living on the floor. What was an interesting novelty to begin with ended up in sore backs, frustration and a longing for a table, chairs, a non-futon bed and a pillow which is not a sack of rice.

• Crowds. Crowded trains. Crowded buses. Crowds to catch trains and buses. Crowds to get into any attractions (except Disneyland on a cold rainy day), etc. You get the idea.

• The Japanese obsession with superheating transport in Winter. I understand that the Japanese Winters are cold, but that is still not a good excuse to cook your bus or train occupants. The strange thing was that we seemed to be the only ones that noticed this temperate madness. Japan please take note: 30 degrees on a crowded bus is not normal, or comfortable, or necessary. Stop doing it.

If I spent enough time I could probably add 10 other likes and dislikes to the lists above, but you get the idea.

So, in retrospect, I think the 2nd Japan trip has given us less of a "wow factor" than the 2008 trip did, because we knew exactly what to expect. Japan is still, and I expect always will be, an amazing place to visit. Sadly however, I don't think we'll ever walk around as wide eyed tourists taking everything in as if on another planet like we did on the first trip. Japan is still different, but it no longer "new" or surprising.

I think that anyone with an interest in Asian culture history, or just a desire to visit a place a very different to the world that they are used to, should definitely see Japan once in their lifetime. For westerners, it is as close as you will come to stepping onto another planet, where nothing is familiar. And I personally think that that is a very cool way to spend a holiday.



I think that now Japan has become very familiar, and we've now finally got the Japan travel bug out of our system. When we left Japan last time, we knew we'd go back to finish what we've started, and now it truly feels like we've done that. We'll still go back to Japan one day, but it won't be a month long exploratory quest like the last 2 trips have been. Where to next on our next major holiday? Canada & Alaska? USA road trip? Hawaii? New Zealand? A cruise?

To Japan, our 2nd favourite country in the world outside of Australia, and by extension to most of the people there, I say thank you for all of the memories we'll now keep and reflect on for the rest of our lives. I've got no doubts that we'll see you again at some point in the future.