Here we go JAPAN!!

I was feeling so nervous about this upcoming trip, not quite having a good travel itinerary, being nervous about the language of having a fear of how we were gonna get from the airport to our hotel— All of these worries really immobilized me for at least a week before our trip even though I wanted to have fun with friends that were visiting the packing and preparation were taking a lot of my energy— and so I was doing a lot of homework and not leaving the house 😂😂

But then we got on the plane and away we went!!  Now all that we needed to do was just enjoy our trip, right? The first thing that we ran into was we were not able to get any Japanese currency at the airport, but we needed to buy tickets to get us to our Airbnb that night which is about an hour away somehow Cael found a train and we bought tickets and I don’t know how we got there, but somehow we we did!! Sweaty hot and tired we made the short walk from the train to our little home for the next four days

Day one begins. We were able to get local currency from the ATM in the 711 hallelujah!! We bought breakfast at the convenience store and headed out for the day

Osaka castle- after a few mistakes on the trains and subways, we finally made it to our first destination of the day. Connor’s phone was the only one that we were able to get Wi-Fi and Internet access so he was our navigator and I have to say he did pretty good most of the time . It was so hot and we were sweating making our way up to this historic location— Cannon almost didn’t make the climb up to the top— but thankfully with our Osaka Day Pass our tickets we didn’t have to wait in the long line like everyone else—  we were able to make our way all the way up the stairs to the top. Each level of the castle was a museum with some interesting history and artifacts. I think my favorite was the samurai armor. But the heat and humidity were really starting to wear us down

A short distance away from the Osaka Castle was another attraction that we could enter with our amazing pass the mini figure museum. This was OK and pretty fun to stop at at least there was some air conditioning and cool place for us to recover before heading out to find lunch. Cael and Connor ate Hot noodles while the rest of us got McDonald’s. A good break to cool down and rest for the next adventure.

The zoo was a fun little stop on our day although we were all starting to feel pretty exhausted and ready to head back home. We were entertained by the chimpanzees and we got a little scared when one came flying up and hit the glass right in front of us! Screams and giggles

I was happy to see a red panda before we decided to leave

We then worked our way over to a tower where we could go down a slide with our ticket! It’s pretty fun, but Brecon said it shook his brain so he was ready to go home.

The famous shot in Osaka!! We did it! I was still feeling pretty anxious and nervous about traveling in this country with all of my kids, but amazed also at how great they all did on our first day!!