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 by so fast. Seemingly more-so even than both of the previous Japan trips, which makes this blog entry so difficult to write.

I have to admit to myself and the world that the holiday is over, and I'm now bound for normality again.

Our third Japan trip. Am I sorry that we went back to the same country again, and didn't choose somewhere else to go this time? After all, plenty of people have asked why we'd choose to go back to the same place over and over. Shouldn't we have gone somewhere new...somewhere different?

Honestly, my answer is absolutely, most certainly not. This holiday was everything I was hoping it would be. Japan is such a fascinating country, such an exciting place to be, that I could return there for 10 holidays and still enjoy the 10th as much, if not more, than the first.

Will there be a 4th Japan trip? Definitely. No question about it.
Will the 4th Japan trip be the next major holiday? Probably not, unless an airline twists my arm with an airfare deal too good to refuse.

Onto the day's activities.

Friday, the final day of the trip, sees us with no plans, other than to make our way to the airport in time for our flight, which is scheduled to transport us from Kansai to reality at 8:25pm.

The Universal Port hotel in Osaka has been a fantastic hotel. Very lavishly appointed and decorated, with probably the best hotel service we received in all of our hotels in Japan. For a family room to sleep a family of 5 for 14,000 Yen per night (~ $150) with all of the inclusions that this room came with, it was an absolute bargain.

Another little plus of staying at the Universal Port hotel was the check-out time. Hotels in Japan generally have a 10am check-out, which is pretty standard. Some hotels we've seen extend this to a generous 11am check-out time, but Universal Port was the first hotel that we've ever seen which has allowed a midday checkout. This was another fantastic extra which we weren't expecting, and since we had no plans for the day this suited us perfectly. It meant that instead of rushing around getting packed the night before, we were free to sleep in, and pack at our own pace on the day we were checking out.

Leaving the bags with the concierge for a 4pm pick-up, we took the short walk from the hotel over to Universal City for the final time. The weather again looked ominous, like it could snow at any moment. We simply assumed that there would be no snow, because of the lack of snow we'd had on this trip.

Having already explored Universal City fairly thoroughly over the last few days, we were free today, for possibly the first time on this trip, to take our time, and not have to rush to be anywhere. At this point that is a welcome feeling because, after fitting so much into the last 3 weeks, we're all exhausted. Another 10 hours of sleep probably wouldn't have gone astray for any of us, especially if we knew what fun we'd face traveling home.

Morning coffee time had spilled over into the afternoon due to our late exit from the hotel. I'm certainly going to miss the fantastic Starbucks caramel machiato's.
Whenever I mention drinking Starbucks coffee, I'm almost universally mocked by whoever I'm speaking to, but honestly, Starbucks in Japan is consistently magnificent. I've had Starbucks in Australia and New Zealand, and it was terrible. The NZ cup was just ok, but Starbucks in Australia was undrinkable. Apparently the US Starbucks isn't rated all that highly either.

Starbucks in Japan though is very, very good. I've honestly never had a coffee there that I wouldn't classify as excellent. I'm not sure if Japan Starbucks is honestly just better, or whether I've got my rose coloured holiday influenced glasses on which taints my opinion and makes it just seem better in Japan. Either way I don't care. It is really really good. And I'll miss the Venti sized cups. A bucket of coffee on a cold morning is indescribably excellent.

Having not had any ramen this trip, and reading about a must-visit ramen store in Universal City made the lunch decision fairly easy. We'd looked at this ramen restaurant, creatively named "RA-MEN. Produced by KOTAN" at several times while walking around selecting a restaurant, and they've always been full. Luckily at this point, at lunch on a Friday, they still had room, so we entered and were shown to a table. It wasn't long after we were seated that the restaurant filled up.

And we soon found out why. Whoever, or whatever KOTAN is, he makes damn good ramen.

Cooked fresh to order, our steaming hot bowls of ramen came out accompanied by a variety of side dishes. I for example had the ramen with gyoza (Japanese pork dumplings) and fried rice on the side, and it was spectacularly good. With our meals served, and the restaurant now full to capacity, I'm guessing this quality wasn't just an accident. I think there were more people in the restaurant than there was in all of the other stores in Universal City combined.

The next few hours were spent simply browsing through stores, souvenir shopping, and generally goofing around enjoying the last hours of our non-stop holiday.
Briefly we checked out each of the Universal Studios souvenir shops, as the girls really wanted to buy something. That was, until they saw the prices. The 2 eldest girls Charlotte and Angela each chose several items they wanted, but even they couldn't justify the prices. A 30cm tall Elmo stuffed toy for example? 4500 Yen, or around $50. Even at 9 and 8 years old the girls could see that these prices were massively, massively overinflated. To me it was just annoying because I wanted to buy them something, but knowing I could buy the same thing at a store at home for 1/5th the price was frustrating. The girls ended up deciding that they'd keep the money and look at other souvenirs elsewhere. At the airport maybe.

Yes we expected the prices of souvenirs to be high at Universal Studios, but the prices weren't just high. They were insane. Had the prices been 10% or 15% lower we probably would have bought them the stuffed toys they wanted. But instead by chasing such a high markup we left empty handed. I'm betting hundreds of people per day do the same thing. I'm wondering whether they'd actually make more money with slightly lower prices? But hey, I'm no marketing genius. I'm just a simple software developer.

Even though we avoided entering Universal Studios, mostly due to their inexplicable and frankly stupid 5pm closing time, we walked around the different sites at the entrance to get photos. The girls made a great game up, which was "around the world in 14 seconds". This became a popular spectator sport for quite a few people in which the girls would sprint around the Universal globe, through the water spray mist. The downside of this was, water spray mist is, unsurprisingly, wet. Winter in Japan is, well, cold. With an icy wind blowing, after a couple of laps of Earth the girls were very wet, and very cold, as the water in their fringes turned to icicles. At least they had fun.

By the time 4pm had come around we knew we wouldn't have a chance to eat dinner until it was served on the plane, probably at close to 10pm, so we went to Mosburger for a light meal before heading back to the hotel. Mosburger is a burger chain in Japan which has a series of burgers which look fantastic on the menu, and come out tiny and disappointing when served.
I ordered a "Giant Cheeseburger" which looked roughly the size of a car on the in-store placards. When ordering, it even came with a warning from the friendly girl serving me that it was very very big, as she checked that I was sure I could handle it. After I assured her that I'd be fine with the burger, excited I found a table and waited.

The meals came out, hot and fresh as usual, but I thought that my burger must have been a mistake. After all of the signs building up by expectations, and the staff warnings of the impending doom that the burger was about to unleash, what arrived at the table was more than a little underwhelming. It was just a burger. No bigger or smaller than you're average burger with salad on it, and certainly nowhere near the epic size (or flavour) of the TGI Fridays burger. It was only around half the size of the Center 4 burger even. All in all, a disappointing last meal on Japanese soil. If you're reading this, and considering a trip to Mosburger, just dont. Go somewhere else. Trust me.

We returned to the Universal Port hotel to collect our bags, and take one last look at what is the coolest hotel lobby I've ever seen. Once saddled up with bags we began the depressing and unenviable trek back to Australia that we'd all been dreading for the last 3 weeks.

2 separate trains were needed to get us to Kansai. The first was a relatively short and by now very familiar 2 stop journey from Universal City to Nishikujo. From there we boarded the "Kansai Airport express rapid". They got the Kansai Airport bit right. I'd still argue with the "Express" and "Rapid" bit. The train was pretty much full when we boarded it, which is unpleasant at the best of times, and even moreso when loaded up with 6 bags of luggage, exhausted after 3 weeks non-stop wandering.

The girls eventually found seats. I with the suitcases had to stand for most of the monotonous 80 minute ride to the airport. For the last 10 minutes Charlotte and I found a 2 person seat which made the last 10 minutes of our time on a Japanese train slightly less unpleasant. No less depressing though.

After exiting the train and grabbing luggage trolleys, we bagged up the trusty wifi dongle that I'd been carrying around in my pocket for the last 3 weeks and dropped it into the mailbox at the airport entrance, and made our way into the massive, but surprisingly well organised and simple Kansai airport.

I hate this place. The Kansai airport international departures floor is right up there with my most depressing places on earth. Simply walking in makes me feel uncomfortable, annoyed and depressed all at the same time. It immediately brings back memories of leaving behind the great adventures we've had in Japan on previous, and now the current trip, and returning to normal life. It signifies the exact moment when my brain realises that the fun is actually over.

The Jetstar check-in line was huge. Easily the longest line in the airport. Once again the business class tickets pay off, and we just strolled straight past the hundreds of people waiting in line, and had our baggage checked in under 5 minutes.

Even in Japan, Starbucks is like a plague. Fortunately in Japan they make really good coffee, and double fortunately they have one inside the international departure lounge of Kansai airport which helped ease the pain.

Our timing so far on the trip home had so far been impeccable. After coffees, and a quick breeze through the customs security checkpoint we emerged on the other side with just enough time to do 10 minutes of souvenir shopping, and get to the boarding gate in time for it to open.

In true Jetstar form however, boarding was once again delayed. Only 15 minutes this time, and we were soon seated for the long but relatively comfortable flight back to Australia.
The meals on the flight home were, and I'm being polite here, absolutely awful. Dinner, which came out at around 10pm consisted of chicken with some kind of miso sauce and rice, and a choice of a strange looking cheese platter or strawberry ice cream for desert.

After dinner the lights were dimmed, and I once again confirmed that I, without any doubt, cannot sleep on planes, even in Jetstar business class seats. Veronica I think had a similar problem, but at least Isabelle got a bit of sleep. Charlotte and Angela claimed that they couldn't sleep, but I think they fought sleep, and watched movies on their in-flight iPads for the entire trip. I did the same.

Breakfast was similarly awful. Pre-milked muesli and room temperature yoghurts which were puffed up to the point of detonation, due to the pressure difference inside the plane. Really the only edible portion of the breakfasts were the croissants. They actually weren't bad.

Cairns. Was. Hot. Even at just before 5am in the morning, with the rain beating down, it was still uncomfortably humid, like breathing in steam. And due to the stupid layout of Cairns airport we had to walk from the international to the domestic terminal 10 minutes away.

Arriving at the domestic terminal at around 5am, completely soaked in an uncomfortable mixture of rain and sweat, the rain outside started bucketing down so that the cars parked in the loading zone 10 meters away were no longer visible.
To make matters worse, since domestic flights dont open their luggage check-in until 2 hours prior to boarding, and the main group of shops, restaurants and seats were situated beyond the check-in point, we were stuck for what we thought was going to be 2 hours at a little table at the only cafe available to us, while we drank the worst coffee we'd ever had.

Whoever it was at Cairns airport that decided to open the check-in line early, I owe them a debt of gratitude. We'd only been sitting for 45 minutes or so, when they announced that check-in for our flight would be boarding early. This meant that not only did the 3 bored Jetstar counter staff at baggage check-in now have something to do, it also meant that the growing crowd of people beginning to clog up the domestic terminal could be discipated.

With baggage check done, we went through to Hungry Jacks for our first decent meal since Mosburger yesterday afternoon. And with food done, we selected some comfortable seats so the girls could get some sleep, and help us kill the hours remaining until our last flight.

The girls managed to sleep. I managed to doze off, repeatedly, while 4 or 5 families on all sides of me decided to hold a competition, in their own languages, to see who the loudest ethnicity really was.

The Fijiian family with the 5 kids behind me took an early lead in the shouting championships, but the Australian family in front of me, the Indian family to my left and the father and daughter team to my right soon started to give them a run for their money. All in all, it was a close call, but despite only having 2 team members, I had to award the gold medal for shouting to the Chinese team, who I'm convinced that both father and daughter were deaf, and both don't know it yet. That's the only reason that I can think of why 2 people would shout at each other constantly, while sitting right next to each other.

As an added bonus, I now know how to say "Stop that! Put that down! Come back! Don't stick that up there!" in 4 languages.

After a comfortably uneventful flight to Sydney, we were greeted by fantastic clear weather and magnificent scenery as we approached the airport over the eastern suburbs of Sydney, before performing a u-turn out at sea, and coming in to land on the 3rd runway. As much as I hate Sydney with a passion, it is a very pretty city from the air.

As if to add a final insult to our exhaustion, the trains from the aiport to Central station were undergoing trackwork, so we were put onto a crowded, slow and uncomfortable bus for a 35 minute bus ride, instead of a train ride that should have taken 7 minutes. After a ride on the comparitively dirty, slow and noisy train from Sydney to Newcastle, we arrived back at normality.