After months of planning, research and organising, meticulous preparation which was necessary for taking 3 kids to a foreign country in the middle of winter, and what seemed like endless anticipation while waiting for the adventure, our Japan holiday has come and gone in the blink of an eye. While it seems like a long time ago that we were all on the rickety Newcastle to Sydney rattler bound for Mascot airport over 3 weeks ago, the actual Japan holiday has gone...

The last full day in Japan, and the Osaka Castle 3D illumination was a pretty spectacular way to end it. The day started off, again very slowly. In general, unless you're a businessman rushing to catch a morning train, days begin much later in Japan than they do in Australia. Shops seem to start their trading hours around 10am, and even at that time there is still very few people at the shops. We've slowly become accustomed to these hours too. Unless we're trave...

We had grand plans for shopping, Osaka aquarium and a visit to Osaka castle for the 3d illumination after dark, but once again temperature and motivation were barriers to getting everything done that we wanted to do. I think our ambitious schedules, which worked at the beginning of the trip, are just starting to catch up with us a little too much, and we're actually having to make a conscious effort to slow down now. We actually had a slow and fairly relaxing ...

Today was the inevitable, but sad day where we moved on from Kyoto, and made our last city hop of the trip. Back to Osaka, where this all began, almost 3 weeks ago. We packed up our belongings, and walked out of our spacious apartment for the last time. The Sakara Apartment was a fantastic find, and is probably the most comfortable place we've stayed in Japan. All for less than the cost of the average twin bed motel room per night. For anyone with children consi...

Today started out the day in typical Toyoko Inn fashion, which is to head down to the ground floor to rub elbows with businessmen in the small lobby area to eat a Toyoko Inn breakfast. On today's breakfast menu was croissants, bread rolls, sausages, tinned spaghetti (which is about as un-Japanese and I can imagine), corn soup and salad (read: lettuce) with dressing (read:water), along with coffee and juice served in teeny tiny cups not much bigger than shot gla...