I wonder where they are now....?

Overall, our Japan adventure was great. We had fantastic weather for the entire two weeks, got to see a fair bit of the country, albeit the tourist areas (but then they are tourist areas for a reason – there is stuff to see there!) and left most places with a feeling that we could have filled a bit more time there, so never got bored anywhere. Despite travelling around quite a bit, the efficiency of the transport system, the honesty of the taxi drivers, and the good organisation of Audley Travel meant we were never stressed out. Train journeys were really easy and comfortable, the ability to forward our luggage enabled us to enjoy journeys rather than struggle through them, and to stop off en route on occasion too. Japan wasn’t the culture shock that some things we had read led us to believe it would be, but then we are fairly well travelled, so used to different language, culture, alphabets, food etc. We also both know, and love, London , which meant even the busy parts of...

Our last full day was spent travelling to Osaka on more local and shinkansen trains. I am still tight enough to want to study the map to find how far the hotel is from the station and decide to walk rather than just jump in a taxi, even when we know to trust the taxi drivers here. But the walk was nice, and as we had forwarded our large luggage from Tokyo to here, we weren’t carrying much. Another upmarket hotel (ANA Crowne Plaza) but as we were only spending one night there, and unfortunately needed to leave before 6am the following morning to catch our flights home, we weren’t even able to experience the breakfast. As soon as we had checked in we headed out for a walk in the general direction of Osaka castle. A pleasant wander around Osaka , which seemed very quiet, but then it was lunchtime on a Friday and we seemed to be in a bit of a business district. Osaka has a number of rivers flowing through and around it, and the particular river we needed to cross had a little...