Japan - Day 13 - Departure

It was Saturday, 7 November—the last day of our trip. Etsuko had decided to meet us and see us off.

The plan was simple. I’d already picked up our tickets for the 12:00 airport express from Kyoto Station. We had to check out by 10:00, then we’d rest in the hotel foyer until about 11:00 before walking to the station with our heavy bags. We allowed half an hour for that. That was the plan, anyway!

Jen wasn’t feeling too well, so I let her stay in bed while I packed the bags as best I could and got her breakfast. By about 9:00, she was ready and her bags were packed. We relaxed until just before 10:00, then went down to reception to check out.

Jen rested in the foyer while I went to the mall for one last look for those shoes I’d been eyeing off. To my amazement, I found them within ten minutes. Then I looked properly at the price: not 1,900 yen, but 19,000! Big difference. They certainly weren’t worth $190 to me, so they stayed in the shop.

I went back and sat with Jen for about ten minutes before Etsuko arrived, just after 11:00. Off we went towards Kyoto Station with our heavy bags. The paths were surprisingly smooth, which made pulling the big bags along much easier than I’d expected.

Jen and Etsuko chatted just out of my earshot, but I gathered they were talking about another visit and Pauline coming over in a few weeks. Etsuko still remembers my father-in-law, John, very fondly and has lovely memories of the family. She always loves seeing us.

Jen said we’d be back in Japan one day—she’d need more fabric, of course! We’ll have to talk a bit more about that.

The walk took about 20 minutes. Etsuko used her travel card to come through to the train area with us, and we sat on our bags for the last half-hour while we waited.

Both Jen and Etsuko were crying when it was time to say goodbye and board the train. It was a bitter moment for me too. I’d surprised myself with just how much I’d enjoyed Japan, and leaving to go home felt tough.

The express took just over an hour and fifteen minutes to reach Kansai Airport

  

Once there, we cashed in our travel cards and were surprised to get about another $20 in spending money.

Jen still wasn’t feeling great, so we went straight to check-in. We had to wait about ten or fifteen minutes for it to open, but once it did, we got the bags sorted. Both big bags weighed 28 kilos, just as we’d checked beforehand, and our cabin bags were just on 6.9 kilos each. We were just inside the limit if anyone weighed them!

We got through immigration and customs quite quickly and found our gate for the flight from Kansai to Singapore. It was a very smooth flight, and the food was surprisingly tasty. Japanese food on a Singapore flight—we enjoyed that!

We had a three-hour wait in Singapore before boarding the flight to Melbourne. That flight came with an unwelcome extra: a passenger behind us got drunk and became abusive. A steward stepped in and made it very clear what would happen. When we landed in Melbourne, the passenger was escorted off by the police. One way to start your holiday in Australia!

Overall, the trip had been a great success. Getting through Australian customs was quick and easy, and Gemma was there to meet us.

When we got home, Nara was waiting. She was so excited that Mum and Dad were finally back that she kept wetting herself! She hardly left our sides for the rest of the day. We weren’t going anywhere without her knowing about it.

I think the kids were expecting the presents to come straight out, but Mum told them we were saving those for Christmas. Something else to look forward to!

On Sunday, we enjoyed a nice silverside dinner with the kids before they went home. Luckily, it was an early finish, and Jen and I crashed into bed at about 8:00.

I was back at work the next day. Little did I know what a nightmare was waiting for me—but that’s another story.

 

Japan - Day Twelve - Fukakusa Inari

 

This was our last day of sightseeing. We’d missed Fukakusa Inari because of the rain on our big day, so we decided to give it another go and fit in a few other places nearby to the south.

The alternative was the Philosopher’s Path, but Jane wasn’t having that. She was exhausted from the holiday, and there was no way she was doing another 30,000 steps in a day! So we went with option two: catch up on what we’d missed and see how far we got before she ran out of steam.

First stop was Fushimi Momoyama Castle. We took the train, then had a good 20-minute uphill hike from the station to reach it.

When we arrived, we found an empty car park, rundown gardens and a castle that looked as though it needed some care and attention. It didn’t seem to be getting many tourist dollars to help with the upkeep.

The place was closed, so we took a few pictures and headed back to the train. Probably one of the only real disappointments of the whole trip.

Back on the train, we headed to Fukakusa Inari. When we arrived, there were crowds—and plenty of them! It certainly felt like everyone visiting Kyoto had decided to come here.

We followed the flow of tourists around the shrine and past the shops until we reached the torii gates. There were two routes, with people heading up the right-hand side, walking four abreast. Busy was an understatement.

At the end of the first stretch, the next section climbed steeply uphill. Jane wasn’t in the mood for that, so we turned back down the other side.

About halfway down, the tour group behind us stopped for a group photo. Jane walked ahead while I hung back, and suddenly I had a rare chance to photograph the path through the torii gates with nobody in it. Just a little gap in the crowd, but perfect timing! Jane thought it was wonderful, especially when everyone else’s photos would be full of people.

From there, we took a slow stroll along the paths towards the nearby temples. There were plenty along the way, so we took our time, had some street food and picked up drinks from 7-Eleven.

We wandered through the back streets, passing different temples and some very expensive-looking houses. Eventually, we reached Tofuku-ji Temple.

There was a beautiful temple and lovely gardens, with a bridge overlooking lots of maples that were just starting to show their autumn colours. A really nice spot tucked away.

The next recommended stop was Shinzenkō-ji Temple. This one was a bit disappointing. It had some very nice small gardens, but there was a private function in the main temple selling sake to tourists, which wasn’t something we wanted to join.

By the time we came out, it was 2:00 and Jane had had enough. She was tired, so we decided to head back to the apartment for a few hours’ rest before meeting Etsuko for dinner again that evening.

In the meantime, I went to explore Kyoto Station. It’s a magnificent, enormous building with so many floors. Once I got above the train levels, I discovered restaurants and food places everywhere.

Little did I know we could have been eating there throughout the trip! Still, we’d enjoyed the food we’d found, and I was looking forward to another evening with Etsuko and Jeremy at a local restaurant.

Dinner turned out to be delicious too. A great way to finish the holiday.

Japan - Day Eleven - Himeji Castle Trip.

Another good-looking day, but after yesterday’s effort, Jane needed a bit of a rest, so we gave ourselves a lie-in. We slept until about 8:30 and weren’t out of the apartment until around 9:30.

It was only a short walk to Kyoto Station, where we picked up our JR tickets to Himeji. This was going to be our bullet train experience for the trip. We reserved seats, and to my amazement, there was a train about every 20 minutes.

The journey was going to take roughly an hour and twenty minutes, with a stop on the edge of Osaka along the way. The train pulled slowly out of Kyoto, then we could feel it picking up speed. There wasn’t a speed indicator, but my phone was telling me our average speed was over 160 kilometres an hour. Not bad! The scenery beside us flashed past.

It was a very smooth, quiet ride, and the seats were comfortable enough for Jane to fall asleep. Surprisingly, within about 20 minutes we’d pulled into Osaka. People quickly hopped on and off, and away we went again.

We sped along above the houses on a raised track, occasionally plunging into the darkness of a tunnel before emerging again among the mountains. An interesting experience, and sure enough, we pulled into Himeji right on time.

As soon as we stepped out of the station, we could see the castle in the distance. From what I understood, its history went back more than a thousand years, and it had survived the Second World War without being bombed. There it was, with its keep and surrounding buildings still standing—a wonderful sight.

We strolled up through the mall towards it. Surprisingly, a lot of the shops were still closed, and some would still be closed when we came back for a late lunch. After about 20 minutes’ walking, we reached the castle entrance. The tour buses were parked well down the street rather than near the castle, and there weren’t many of them.

We got our tickets and headed in, noticing there weren’t many souvenir shops near the building. What we hadn’t realised was that there were no lifts—just steps! It was quite a climb even to reach the basement where we started, before working our way up through all seven floors.

At the top, we were rewarded with great views of the city below. We took our time coming back down.

The winding paths, steep steps and defensive walls made it clear how difficult it would have been to reach the keep as an attacker. Once inside, we soon realised it was best to stick to the route or we’d get lost ourselves!

What struck me was that the castle itself was the keep, with the living quarters in the surrounding buildings. As I understood it, the keep was somewhere safe to retreat to during an attack, with weapons and supplies to see out a long siege. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be on the attacking side.

All in all, a beautiful building and one of the treasures we loved exploring.

Coming out of the castle, it was a simple walk along the moat to Koko-en Gardens. From what I gathered, the gardens had been a place for the castle’s gentry to relax. I understood they’d been replaced by army barracks before the Second World War, that the barracks were heavily bombed, and that archaeological work in the 1960s led to the gardens being rebuilt in the early 1970s.

 Whatever their history, the gardens were beautiful. I noticed sprinkler systems tucked discreetly into the walls to give them extra water without spoiling the look.

We spent a good hour there. Jen was rather tired after all the climbing in the castle, so she sat in one of the gardens under the wisteria and maple trees, with a chance to contemplate and relax, while I explored some of the others. A great way to spend the afternoon.

It was about 1:30 when we came out and started thinking about what to do next. We slowly wandered back down the mall, looking in a few shops, and came across a little Japanese burger place. Only this wasn’t your usual burger lunch!

There was a big beef patty, which I reckoned had a bit of pork mixed in for some fat, served in a frying pan with chips and a little broccoli. Alongside it came separate bowls of salad, rice and miso, plus a very nice sweet, cold dessert that seemed to be made with fermented rice.

All that for about $12.00 each. We loved that lunch!

We made it back to the station at about 2:30 to catch the bullet train home. By just after 4:00, we were back in Kyoto and could take a leisurely walk to our accommodation. We relaxed for a while, then headed to the mall for dinner.