Soooo it turns out counting the 89 steps and drinking from the 9-headed dragon spring water doesn’t get rid of all your bad luck…. Taxis were not as quick to arrive today, so when we arrived at the Shinjuku Bus Terminal we discovered we couldn’t board the 8.10am bus and had to wait an hour for the next one. That made Belle sad as we wouldn’t make it in time for the opening of Disneyland, but it did mean we had time to find a Starbucks, drink coffee and celebrate Jess’ great results with her.

When we finally arrived at the theme park at close to 10am, we unfortunately found that the fast pass system was running out, and the line for the Beauty and the Beast ride was 145 minutes wait. So I did something I swore I’d never do…..I paid to do the ride! And even then the earliest timeslot we could get was 6.40pm! The boys decided it was not worth paying for, but the girls and I decided we would not want to miss it.

This was all discussed in the line for Pirates of the Caribbean, a ride that has become our tradition to be the first of the day. It was great but tamer than California, so we went on to do the classics like Peter Pan, Pinocchio and It’s a Small World (I managed to get them all on it!)

The Japanese will queue patiently for hours, and from the time we arrived in the morning they seemed to be placing rugs and sitting in prime spots ready for the lunchtime parade. We took that as a good opportunity to grab a quick lunch at the Plaza cafe. Food is different at every venue, and usually only has two or three options. But it is not worth picking something for food you like really, it is better just to pick a short line, refuel and keep going!

We had booked a fast pass for the Haunted Mansion and Star Tours, and then no more were available. So we waited in line for Roger Rabbit, then the kids all lined up for Big Thunder Mountain while Ross and I rode the Mark Twain paddle steamer and Snow White Adventures ride (it was weird – there was no Prince and it ended with Snow White eating the poisoned apple?!).

Once we all met up again, there was still 90 minutes until our Belle ride unfortunately, so we checked out some of the shops, did Pirates of the Caribbean again, and headed over the Belle’s village. The ride was excellent, our favourite of the day, and it is just such a shame that the long wait times mean people miss out on it.

We were keen to get back to the hotel and start packing, so we left after that ride and caught the bus back to Shinjuku. Tom found a Shake Shack near the bus terminal, so we decided the tradition should be that we eat our first and farewell meal there. The 8.30pm dinner of burgers, fries and shakes didn’t have a calming effect though, or maybe it was the excitement of Disney or mixed feelings about going home, but I am not sure how I am going to get them to pack and turn on quickly enough so they get at least some sleep before our 5am departure tomorrow…….

Well everyone did extremely well to pack up their rooms and be in the lobby by 5am, where our driver was waiting with a van big enough for 8 to take us to the airport.

He dropped us at Terminal 3, but we quickly realised we needed to be at Terminal 2, so took a free shuttle bus over to the correct place.

There was a slight hiccup checking in just because at 6am there was not a lot of information readily available or staff on the ground to direct us to the right place. But we were at Gate 72 before 7am, which gave us plenty of time for coffee and pooling of our coins to spend rather than bring home.

While we have missed the rest of the family, it has been fun to share the experience with our younger 4 plus Tom and Jess. I expect everyone will need some downtime to recover from the pace though 🤭. The trip has been a wonderful opportunity to explore a new country and culture, and while some things like transport have not been easy, it has been an educational experience.

Today was an early start of 7am to meet our tour at Shinjuku I-Land, at the Love statue in the business park by 7.50am. Two taxis took us there without a hitch (because I asked hotel staff to tell them once again where we needed to go). A block from our destination our cab driver caught on to our accent and started chatting in English to us!

Our lovely tour guide called Mao boarded 40 of us onto a coach for the two hour drive to Mount Fuji. Thankfully the skies were clear and we were able to go to the 5th station. We were not as thankful when we stepped out into the minus 3 degrees temperature – it was literally breathtaking!

Mao promised us excellent coffee there and a delicious snack in the shape of Mt Fuji, but the pipes were frozen so no coffee could be made and the toilets couldn’t flush 😬

Our coach then drove us to a Ninja Village for a Japanese hotpot/ all-you-can-eat buffet lunch. We learned there it doesn’t pay to be polite – we sat back and waited while others on the tour dove in and filled their plates, and as a result missed out on some of the smorgasbord items. We still had plenty to eat though, and walked it off in the Japanese garden next door.

Back on the coach, we continued on to the Hakone area, starting in “Owakudani” a valley once called “Valley of Hell.” This active volcano (it last erupted in 2015 and erupts every 30 years) area smells strongly of sulphur, and is famous also for its black eggs.

We then took the Hakone Rope, or cable car, down the mountain with an amazing view of Mt. Hakone.

This trip landed us at Lake Ashi, a caldera lake, where we boarded a 30 minute cruise. There has been a variety of transport involved in today’s activities!

Back on the coach, we continued on to Hakone Shrine, one of the most famous shrines in the area because of its photogenic red torii gate floating on the water called “Torii of Peace.”

Our guide gave us an interesting lesson on Japanese religions – Shintoism or Buddhism (and she said they are Christians for one day of the year, Christmas Day, so they can celebrate that season and enjoy KFC, where they book in one month in advance to make sure they can eat it on 25 December). She told us that overall Japenese are not really religious but they do like their customs and superstitions.

The path to the shrine had 89 steps, which is a number for bad luck in Japan. She encouraged us to wash our hands at the purification station at the bottom, then climb the 89 steps, counting them as we went. This would then get rid of bad luck for us, and if we drank from the 9-headed dragon spring water after visiting the shrine, we would have good luck 😉

Our coach then dropped us to Odawara station to get a bullet train back to Shinjuku. We could have caught the coach back, but Mao said that could take 2-3 hours due to traffic, whereas the bullet train would take less than an hour.

Once the bullet train arrived in Tokyo, we were supposed to find a transfer gate to change trains for Shinjuku. Of course, I went out the wrong gate at Tokyo station and it swallowed our tickets before our final destination 😬

So while there we decided to find dinner and souvenirs. We found a delicious German restaurant in a restaurant precinct with a dozen or more restaurants to choose from, where everyone enjoyed pasta and pizza. Sam declared it was the best pasta he’d ever had. I declared that if there were such choices at train stations for our evening meals, I may have continued working in the city and rarely bothered cooking dinner 😎

We then had to navigate our way through to Shinjuku station, and then on a separate railway line to our local station, Akebonobashi. Shinjuku is the busiest train station in the whole of Japan and has 100 different exits 😬 so it took us a while and many long walks to find our way, but we made it! Ross and I decided if we were here for a couple of weeks we would learn our way around the local train system, but we would have to be in Japan for months or years to properly understand it further afield.

We encouraged the kids to turn in early for yet another big day tomorrow 😉

Well, everyone enjoyed their sleep in! And the girls had the opportunity to use the breakfast vouchers for a leisurely and traditional Japanese breakfast. Their verdict: “some of it was tasty, the rest was mid”.

The extra rest time did help reduce the swelling in my left foot, but Ross has worse pain today. We are tag-teaming our doing great/in pain moments at least 🤣 To aid us both, we decided to catch taxis at 10am (rather than trains with three line changes) over to Odaiba for some shopping at Aqua City. And to further aid us, I asked the hotel receptionist to tell the taxi driver where we were going before we left!

Our taxi had us there within 20 minutes! And we discovered a Starbucks in the centre so sat down for some real coffee mid-morning. Japanese culture frowns on eating and drinking while walking, so you either need to find seating or stand in the doorway of shops to finish your food/drink before you move on. The kids were able to find a few little souvenirs, and are ticking people off their list. This brought home to me that I have bought myself one fridge magnet, no souvenirs for anyone, and I am also acutely aware that after my strong start I still have several Christmas presents to buy and wrap 😬 “but anyway“, as our tour guide Sachi liked to say…..

After two hours exploring the waterfront shopping area (including discovering a random Statue of Liberty replica), we chose our own lunch adventure from the food court (some Japanese traditional meals, some burger and fries from Wendy’s), and caught two more taxis to TeamLab Planets, 10 minutes away. This is an immersive art installation museum which is very instagrammable.

We enjoyed two hours there exploring. It was great fun, and an experience that was different, although the whole time you had to be barefoot and occasionally walk through water, so we were thankful for the strong smell of chlorine, and also that the bandaid I gave Jess from my medical supplies held up 🤣

From there, taxis returned us to Shinjuku. I intended to take everyone to see Godzilla on the hotel building, but some of them didn’t know who Godzilla was (#parentingfail), so we headed straight to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building to visit their (free) observation deck on the 45th floor.

Next stop was exploring the streets of Shinjuku (many electronics shops and restaurants) on the way to Shinjuku train station. Now we thought we knew how to work the trains after our last adventure – we knew how to buy 8 tickets, and that we needed the green line. A station worker decided to help us and asked us where we wanted to go. When I answered “Akebonobashi station”, she nodded and sent us down many steps onto the red line.

Given I have struggled with making people understand me every single day, I decided not to question it and figured she knew better than me. When, six stops later, we arrived at Akebanebashi station, I realised I should have trusted my instincts!! We quickly swapped platforms and went back the six stops we had already travelled, found the green line and took the two stops to our local station 😬

Once back in our street, the others chose a dinner location from the many choices between the station and our hotel, while I started some laundry. Their choice was great – it was a Japanese/Chinese restaurant with extremely quick service and delicious food. Within minutes of ordering, the food arrived at the table. There were only three other tables of customers, all groups of 3-5 women. Reminded me of myself at home! 😉

My laundry load is still not dry, so I have encouraged the kids to get an early night ready for our next early start tomorrow while I keep feeding yen into the machine for an extra 30 minutes of drying. Hopefully it is dry now my diary entry is done 😉

Our day started at 7.30am as we met to catch taxis to Shinjuku to get a bus to DisneySea. We determined last night that at $10pp for a 45 minute trip, the bus there was the best way to go.

Only one of our three rooms has breakfast included, so the boys took the coupons down to the restaurant hotel this morning while the rest of us ate cereal in our rooms 😂

The boys took the first taxi to the bus terminal, which gave them time to buy our tickets and be ready for the bus departure time. The girls’ taxi driver had no idea where to drop us and left us in a side street quite disoriented, so once again I had to map my location to Ross’ to find them, and we arrived at the bus just as it was about to depart. The conductor made us RUN to catch it – running is not my sport at the best of times, and certainly not now I’m limping with whatever ligament damage I’ve done to my left foot 😬

The trip was fine on a comfortable coach, we arrived before the park opened, and were at the Indiana Jones ride by 9.20am. We decided to skip the 120 minute wait (!) and do the ride as single riders. Only Belle and I had to ride as singles – Zac was placed in the same row as Ross, and the other four were given a row together!! And we walked straight through and were done with the ride by 9.27am!

That spurred everyone on to do as many single rider rides as possible. They next did a rollercoaster called Raging Spirit, while I minded bags and jackets and elevated my leg, and then we all did the Sinbad ride together.

We next visited Ariel’s Grotto and I made Sam pose with Prince Eric to help him get into the zone for next year’s school musical, and the kids did some of the rides there. They also enjoyed a sea salt icecream sandwich in a clam shell.

Most of the kids then went to line up for Tower of Terror (a 90 minute wait) while Ross, Zac and I rode the railway, watched a Mickey and Minnie show on a boat on the water, and went to line up for lunch.

We ate seafood pizza at Zambini’s, an Italian restaurant. Just as we finished, the others arrived from their ride and were able to order and use our table (the lines for restaurants and snacks here are long waits).

We all then did the Aquatopia ride together, and then Ross and I did a paddle steamer ride while the kids returned to rides in Ariel’s Grotto and then did Indiana Jones and Raging Spirit again. We had intended to meet them at the Indiana Jones ride to do it with them, but the boat ride ended nearer the park entrance , so we elected to just rest and wait for them there. We checked out some of the shops, but the queues in there were also ridiculous.

They made it back to meet us for the 6.15pm bus ride back to Shinjuku. I’m sure they would have liked to stay for the fireworks, but the bus didn’t run that late at night, so we weren’t sure how we would get home if we left when the park closed.

One disappointment we have here is the wait times. Most rides have times ranging from 100 minutes to 190 minutes! When the park is open for 12 hours, I can’t imagine wanting to spend a quarter of your time available waiting for one ride, but the Japanese do 🤷‍♀️ They also queue for restaurants and even snack carts. When we did Disneyland in July, you could order ahead everywhere and just press a button when you were ready to pick it up, so these theme parks have been quite a shock in comparison.

The bus returned us to the Shinjuku Bus Terminal, and we stopped in the next street for McDonalds for dinner (which Jess and Belle have been requesting). Two taxis then took us back to the hotel, and I announced I have moved our admission tickets tomorrow from 9am to the afternoon so everyone can have a sleep in. Zac and Jess in their post-HSC haze have found the constant early mornings a push, so decided it was very generous of me to change the day’s plans so they could sleep in (although Zac looked at me suspiciously and asked did I change it for them or for me 😉).

Another exciting thing that happened tonight was Jess and Abi both asking for medications. Jess needed some cream for an infected toe (caused by new shoes rubbing and causing blisters – shoes that someone else earned commission on at Rebel because Tim missed her visit….but I digress, Tim…..). Abi needed something for a scratchy throat from all the screaming she did on rides today.

One thing we have all not done well enough over here is drink enough water (oh! And I just realised we have had NO coffee today!!!!! …..Coffee is so hard to find, especially at theme parks……but I digress again….). I made everyone pack a drink bottle, but we have not been diligent enough at filling it and taking it each day.

But something else I pack every holiday is medical supplies, including a letter from our GP explaining why we have them. And every holiday I take a copious amount of supplies of various items, and bring them all home again. So the fact not one, but TWO people needed something, made lugging it all around worthwhile 😎😂

We met in the lobby to check out this morning, and caught taxis (three! To fit us and all our suitcases) to Kyoto train station to get a bullet train to Tokyo – more expensive than the local trains, but with reserved seats and room for all our luggage, it’s more my style of public transport 😉

We arrived at Tokyo station and caught three taxis to our new accommodation. And what an experience it was. I am finding it more, not less, difficult to communicate with taxi drivers. Thankful again for technology, I mapped our destination separately on my phone, and when the driver tried to drop us blocks from our hotel, I was able to direct him with Google maps the rest of the way.

The funniest moment was unfortunately not in my taxi…..our hotel is called the Pearl Hotel. Abi had spent so long telling herself it was Hotel, not Harbour, that in the stress of the moment getting in o a separate taxi (with Tom) and telling the driver where to go, she asked him to take them to “Pearl Harbour” 😳🤭 – now THAT we will be using against her for years to come haha.

Check in time was 3pm, so the hotel minded our bags and we went wandering around Akebonobashi. There were a few restaurants just metres from the hotel and the boys were hungry, so we had a late lunch of burgers and fries at Wendy’s.

By the time we checked in and unpacked, we agreed to meet at 4.15pm to brave the local trains to get to Shibuya. We worked them out with some slight difficulty, and while it may have only been 10-15 minutes of train rides, there was a lot of walking between platforms and lines.

But we made it! Shibuya Crossing was Sam’s bucket list item, so we made sure we crossed it, explored the shops around there, and then crossed it back again!

This place is Times Square to another level, so I made everyone hang on to a travel buddy, and we used Tom and Zac’s height to keep an eye on the others.

I then took everyone up to the Observation deck ‘Shibuya Sky’ in a shopping centre catted Scramble Square. Tickets for today were all sold out, so we went two floors down to a large viewing area where we could watch Shibuya crossing happen for free – the kids called it the common man’s observation deck!

We then braved the trains back home. With restaurants around us booked out, we all chose our own adventure from the supermarket nearby again, and congregated in the boys’ room to eat dinner (our room is even smaller than at the last hotel if that is possible, so we can’t host anyone!).

We encouraged everyone to get an early night ready for DisneySea tomorrow 😊 and then Ross went to take something for his back, and I went to ice my left ankle – everyone is very sympathetic but I do think they might be enjoying the fact that I usually break everyone else on holidays, but this time I’ve broken me!

We met at 8.15am in the lobby to get to our bus tour meeting point on time. The girls’ taxi didn’t know where we were trying to go, so dropped us at the train station and left us to find the meeting place nearby. Thank goodness for technology – I messaged Ross who was in the right place and we mapped our location to his to meet up with the boys.

Our 9 hour bus tour began by taking us to the Golden Pavilion, Kinkajuji. Built 600 years ago by a shogun, an enormous amount of gold was used in construction of the upper floors. While the amount of gold or dollar value was never quantified, in 1985 the Japanese government undertook some R&M and needed 20kg of gold to achieve the renovation 😳

From there the bus took us to Arashiyama. We walked the Togetsukyo bridge, and then through the amazing bamboo forest. Our tour guide had given us instructions but then left us to explore on our own. We had difficulty finding the forest at first (the guide, called Eric, is lovely, but some things get lost in translation), but were glad we persevered.

This was also our lunch stop. One of Jess’ goals for this trip was to eat some dumplings – we found a location for lunch that served dumplings on a stick. Goal achieved and they were delicious!

Our next stop on tour was the Fushimi Inari Shrine, containing the 1,000 Tori gates. We walked through some of them, but it is a 4km round trip to explore them all, and we didn’t have time for that!

It was then another hour on the bus to the Nara deer park and Todaji Temple. Zac and Belle had already seen four temples on their school tour, and the cost of entry (600 yen each) wasn’t included in the tour cost, so the kids weren’t really keen to visit, but joined us anyway.

And they were so glad they did! Jess and Sam both said it was the best thing they had done on our trip so far, and everyone was very impressed. The Todaji temple houses Japan’s biggest Buddha at 15 metres tall, and is a UNESCO world heritage site.

We decided not to feed the deer, because while it is cute the way they bow, if you don’t feed them fast enough by the time they bow at you three times, they can get aggressive and bite 😬

Ross, Zac and I left the others exploring the deer park and headed back to the bus a few minutes early – partly because it was parked near a Starbucks (and we haven’t had a coffee yet today!) and partly because my knee has packed it in and I needed more time to limp back. I know, I know, Ross and I are great chaperones the way we are both falling apart physically 😩

Everyone was keen to eat at the same food hall as last night, opposite the train station and under the Kyoto Skytower. While happy with their choices last night, I think they did have some food envy at others’ choices and wanted to try that tonight.

We caught two taxis back to our hotel. Neither driver had any idea where we were staying and couldn’t communicate with us, so the 8 minute ride was a little difficult. But we are safely back in our rooms, the kids playing games together as they discuss getting an early night to be ready to check out tomorrow, while I rest my weary legs and Ross rests his stuffed back 🤭 Tomorrow to Tokyo we go!

The finer details of our day and transport are finalised each prior evening with the help of “the Google”. It gave us a few options for getting to USJ at various times and costs, so we met in the lobby at 7am and caught taxis to Kyoto train station. There we bought tickets to Universal Studios station (with the help of a friendly ticket seller who narrowed it down to two trains to keep it simple for us).

As we waited on the platform for our train, we noticed other trains with “women only” carriages. Jess told us when researching the trip she had read that a lot of sexual assault happens on these trains, which is why those carriages exist. I immediately had three thoughts: 1. We finally found a downside to this society for which we have been noticing more pros than cons; 2. Now I have something else to worry about and watch the kids closely; and 3. Why can’t we catch a bullet train to USJ 😬😉

While personal space could not exist and it was standing room only, the train ride went well and we even managed to get a seat eventually for Ross with his sore back.

We arrived at Universal at 8.40am and headed straight for Harry Potter World after booking our timed entry into Super Nintendo World. Everyone went on the Hogwarts rides while I minded bags, shopped and lined up for butterbeer (behind 120 other people! I had time to count them!)

We then wandered around to Super Nintendo World to do the rides there. We all did the Yoshi ride, and then I lined up for popcorn while the others did the MarioKart ride. Popcorn was ready as they exited the ride, so we tried caramel peach popcorn and mushroom cream popcorn. I have tried so many new things on this trip, and have been glad I did for the most part. I will not, however, be straying from plain salted or buttered popcorn again…..

Unlike Disneyland, there was only one restaurant where you could mobile order lunch, so we had burgers and cokes there and continued exploring. There were several rides left to do but everything had a 1-2 hour wait!! Even for single riders the minimum wait was 100 minutes!!

We arrived in Minion Park and most of the kids decided to join a 90 minute ride there. Ross and I went in search of coffee, and Jess joined us in search of souvenirs. We explored some of the other lands, found coffee that we promptly tasted and disposed of, and sat down to wait for the others. While every other wait line had underpromised and over delivered (meaning they were always off the ride before the end of the stated wait time at the entrance), the Minions ride took longer, and the kids were not impressed with it.

We then regrouped and decided as much as there were a few other rides they would like to try, no one wanted to line up for another 110+ minutes, so we left!

We stopped in Starbucks for a frappucino before working out the train system well enough to get back to Kyoto. There was a food hall across the road where we told everyone to choose their own adventure for dinner, and then we caught taxis back to our accommodation.

Today’s title is what I am often accused of not including 😂

Ross was doing well enough that he left at 8am to go and pick up Zac and Belle from their school music tour. That involved a train trip to Hamamatsu Station, to meet them as they checked out of their hotel nearby. The school was heading on to a Science Museum and then on to the airport, but logistically that was the best place to get them. He was also looking forward to the chance to just sit and stretch and rest his back.

The kids (who I really should refer to as young adults, not kids) took the opportunity for a sleep in and then headed off to explore Kyoto some more while I did laundry. We were all very happy with our day! 😉

When Ross returned with Belle and Zac, we joined the others for a late lunch at a restaurant they found, and all enjoyed fried rice and gyozas. Then they took us back to Nishiki Markets and some stores they had found, including a specialty donut store where we stopped for afternoon tea.

We headed back to our accommodation via the Pokemon Centre, to show Zac and Belle our first find of the trip. I managed to do another laundry trip with all the washing Zac and Belle had brought me, and then we headed downstairs to the supermarket next door to our hotel to choose our dinner, using Google translate to work out what we were buying.

The girls’ room is the largest and tidiest, so we congregated there for dinner with our supermarket finds, caught up on the school tour news, and decided on an early night. Tomorrow is the release of HSC results and a day at Universal Studios. We are not confident with our transport plans, so thought we should get going early.