We got our bags all packed, then went for a quick breakfast at a little cafe around the corner from our accommodation in Kyoto. After we checked out, Claire took the girls to a cat cafe. It was awesome and kawaii.

Meanwhile, Aaron, Troy, and I went to Kyoto station and put our bags into a locker. What a mission.

Then we all met up at another street market and wandered and ate lots of interesting food including more crepes, salmon, sashimi, and beef sushi.

The weather turned cold and we caught a taxi to the Kyoto Railway museum. It was awesome. So many trains to look at. Some you were allowed into the cab. The girls had a great time. Their favourite thing was a partial subway train where they could make announcements over the loud speaker.

Then we rushed back to the train station, met Claire and Troy to say goodbye, and caught a train to the airport. The trains are so comfy and roomy and you can drink. We arrived in plenty of time for our flight (no upgrade - boo!) And settled in for the long haul. The girls slept pretty well and I slept a bit.

Can't believe it's all over and we're home.

And it was nice to take off my shoes and socks and put on a pair of jandals.

We caught the bullet train to Hiroshima and walked around the park in the rain. The remains of the A-bomb dome were pretty sombre. We went through the museum, where they have remains of clothing and the detritus of human life.

It's amazing how quickly they rebuilt the city. There's not much left from before the bomb.

We went to Hiroshima Castle, which looks awesome from the outside but is modern on the outside. It's a museum and we saw some cool katana swords and samurai armour. The view from the top was amazing.

We got to the Shukkei-en garden just as it closed. :(

Then we found a cool little restaurant block for dinner. We only went to the second floor and looked around. We chose one with English on the menu. There wasn't much choice, but we got 2 similar-but-different things, which are kind of like a savour pancake stack, with a pancake on the bottom, cabbage, bacon, noodles in the middle, and an egg on the bottom. They were both yum.

Then we bought doughnuts for the train ride back to Kyoto. And alcohol. And then we went to another place for dessert. And more alcohol. Emma had whipped cream and strawberries in a chocolate crepe then she fell asleep. Naomi had banana and chocolate on pancakes.

We left our Osaka apartment and caught a train to Kyoto, to our last house. It's a lovely little place. Claire and Troy arrived shortly after us.

We went to explore the Fushimi Inari temple, which is famous for its torii gates, and there sure are a lot of them. Aaron, Naomi, Claire and Troy walked all the way to the top of the mountain. Emma and I walked until we found a nice view of the city, then we came back down. There are lots of steps, and little shops strung along the path.

At the bottom was a street full of food vendors, and we walked along buying seeing food that looked interesting, buying one, and eating it. My favourite was the bacon-wrapped rice ball.

Then we went to lunch on the 11th floor of the Kyoto train station. It's all restsurants. We chose one that did pancake-type things. We got two different types. One was a fluffy noodle-and-egg one, the other was more like a hash brown. Both were delicious.

After that we walked through the bamboo forest an up a preserved street. All the houses were cool but it was a long way and I was getting tired. We saw a Geisha and found a soba noodle place for dinner.

Universal Studios day!

I did a load of washing and hung it on the balcony, which is kind of fenced in with mesh to keep out the crows.

We had brekky at the train station. I got egg and toast, and when it turned up, Aaron said he hoped it wasn't raw, but nope it was boiled.

Weather was nice. Cool but clear. Perfect for being outside. Except Emma forgot her gloves.

We took a train to Universal City, and, wow, is it ever a city.

I'm so glad we bought tickets in advance, because the queues were massive. Even arriving at 9:30, the place was teeming with people.

I'm also super glad we bought the express passes,  because the queue for each ride was anywhere from 90 minutes, and we skipped right past them.

We did

Without the express passes, we never would have fitted in 8 rides. We would have liked to do one more, but couldn't face the queues.

Aaron and I made an executive decision to skip the Flying Dinosaurs. Going head first downwards didn't appeal to either of us.

We spent a lot of time in the Harry Potter area. They built a whole fricken castle and the village of Hogsmeade. But, wow, it was packed. And they weren't even doing admisson control, so it must get worse. It was even cool just walking through he castle. They put so much detail into the rooms and decorations, like the talking paintings. Naomi really didn't like the Forbidden Journey ride, but was also annoyed at herself for closing her eyes and missing it.

Emma pretty much loved everything. She rushed ahead at each queue. What a little adrenaline junkie

They both wanted to buy souvenirs, but everything is so expensive. We bought butter beer (hot for Naomi, cold for Emma) in the HP area and got to keep the mugs, and got dressed up (not me; not in the mood) for a photo, which I couldn't resist buying.

On the way out we stopped at a sushi train place, which was a pretty nice way to end the day. Then we almost screwed up the trains on the way home. We bought some yummy (and one yucky) cream-filled chou pastries and vending-machine hot chocolates for dessert.

We got up early, ate some yummy donut-type things, packed our bags, and said goobye to our Tokyo apartment. We navigated the Tokyo metro for the last time and got on the bullet train for Nagoya.

Emma had another one of the rice triangle things, wrapped n seaweed with fish or something in the middle. I had a hot lemon drink from a vending machine.

The train is pretty comfy and speedy. We didn't get to see Mt Fuji because it was too cloudy.

We left our bags in a locker, which was a bit of a pain in the arse,  then had a quick bite to eat from a fancy bakery.

Then we headed to Lego Land. It was drizzling on and off, but we were wrapped up warm in our jackets. It was a bit eerie because there was hardly anyone there, but that also meant we barely had to queue for anything.

Miniland was amazing. Lots of buttons to push to make things move or make sound.

Naomi was scared of the Dragon roller coaster at first, but then liked it enough to go again. Emma was so excited about all the rides.

It's definitely aimed at children, so the rides were a bit tame, but we had fun.

We couldn't resist buying a tub of hot chips shaped like Lego pieces. They were tasty.

We finished up by taking the girls to the creative room where they could play with Lego. And we finally left at closing time.

We wandered around looking for a place to try shabu shabu and finally found a cool place that was divided into tiny rooms by winding passageways. The floor in some places was glass and they had a water feature below.

I'm really not sure about paying for the privilege of cooking your own dinner.

We collected our luggage from the train station and took the bullet train to Osaka. We got in pretty late but it was easy enough to find our apartment. Not as nice as the last place, but it will do. It has open plan living on the bottom floor and bedrooms up a narrow staircase. The girls and I collapsed into bed.