April 1st we headed to the airport smoothly and took off for Osaka, Japan at 10:45am. It was a long 12 hour flight with little to no sleep for all of us. The kids struggled to get comfortable.
We landed about 2:30pm Osaka time. We finally met Daddy outside of customs just before 5pm. We then had some soft cream and headed to the condo we rented (after getting Icoca cards for the train). Lets just say we did not get to our destination until 7pm. The kiddos finally passed out on the train ride and went straight to bed after quick showers. I crashed about 8:30pm as well and we all slept until am (really 4 am for me, but I rested until 6am).
We had a big hike planned for the next day, which was actually Monday April 3rd, as we arrived on April 2nd. It took a couple of train rides and a bus ride to get to Mt. Kongo. While we waited for the bus we ate some sushi and mochi which fueled us for the grueling hike.
The hike went straight up Mt. Kongo and was literally over an hour of stair climbing.
Axel counted 2000 steps on the way down. I am not sure if he stopped counting, but we were able to do the hike in 2 hours round trip. We were told it would take over 2 hours to get to the top, but we apparently hiked much quicker than projected.
There was a beautiful view of Osaka at the top, as well as a temple and little museum to visit. There were more than 30 people at the top and some very nice locals spoke with us. One man had done the hike 900 times and his wife 200 times.
Our legs were surprisingly shaky on the way down. I believe our calves were the most sore out of all of our muscles.
We ended up walking another couple of miles down the mountain because we didn't want to wait 45 minutes for the next bus. We completed 12 miles that day and just under 27,000 steps, per Axel's fitbit.
We went out for ramen for an early dinner as we were all very hungry.
We all ate it right up. I had this amazing egg custard Ramen. It was absolutely delicious.
The next morning we went to the Osaka aquatic center/park. The famous cherry blossoms surrounded the park and were beautiful.
We swam for a bit and then came out to walk around the sports center.
After lunch we headed to the aquarium. It was one of the better aquariums and had some very interesting sea creatures. This crab in particular is very fascinating with its many mouths.
They had tons of these nearly invisible jelly fish too.
We had more tasty food afterwards. Here is Axel and his meal.
On Wednesday the kids went for another swim with Daddy and I stayed back to get laundry and packing done as we were leaving Thursday morning and I wanted to get things organized and rest a bit. Once they were done swimming we headed to the Osaka castle.
The castle has been turned into a museum so we were not overly thrilled with the modernization of it all, but it the grounds of the castle were absolutely beautiful!
Every day we walked over 10 miles and we saw cute little parks, restaurants and learned a lot about the Japanese culture. They have a volunteer "green club" that plants all of the flowers in public areas. Most often the flowers are placed in a way that looks more like an art piece than flowers. Here is one example.
After we went for a run around the park as a family and showered up on Thursday, we headed to Kyoto. We are at the big Osaka station and captured a picture of how busy the train station is. You can see hundreds of people if you look past us. There were 2 men who were a little drunk having fun with us and our picture. In this picture one of the men is covering his face, in another picture he is happily smiling. This was one of our many fun/funny moments.
We walked through Kyoto Thursday afternoon/evening and saw many more cherry blossoms.
We were going to go to one of the temples, but didn't have enough cash with us, so instead we went out to a delicious Indian dinner. The kids enjoyed the butter chicken and naan bread and rice!
On Friday we went to the Kyoto aquatic center to swim in the morning and then went to the Kyoto shopping district to meet up with Rubix's classmate Hayden at Mi Pig Cafe.
We all had a wonderful time petting the pigs and drinking hot chocolate/ coffee.
It rained all day on Friday so it was a perfect day to go to the shopping and visit the pig cafe.
Rubix was such a gentlemen holding the umbrella for him and Hayden.
Hayden had to go back home to get ready to fly out the next day and we continued to shop and look for dinner. We stopped by another temple to look at the gold artwork.
We then enjoyed okonomiyaki for dinner. They were delicious!
On Saturday we headed up Mt. Heie for another straight up hike. We enjoyed not having as many stairs.
The hike was very beautiful, but has we approached over 3000 feet of elevation the weather took a turn for the worst. The wind was over 60 miles an hour and it hailed on us and was a mix of rain and snow. We were so glad to get to the top and get to a heater. Luckily, there is a tram/gondola at the top of the mountain that brings you down. The hike was projected to take 3 hour to get up, but we did it in an hour and 20 minutes.
Once we took the Gondola down to get to the train/cable car the sun came out and it was beautiful again. It is amazing what 1000 to 1500 feet of elevation can do for weather changes.
This is a view from the train/cable car that took us all the way down to the base of the hill.
After our hike and dinner we finally went back to the "amazing light up cherry blossom temple visit". I should remember the temple's name, but I am too exhausted and have an headache :)
It was very pretty.
There were two other temples to go into on the same grounds.
Definitely a beautiful sight to see.
We went for another swim on Sunday and Phoenix and Rubix were able to do the indoor water slide after their workout. They had so much fun I decided to catch a picture of it before we left for Arashiyama.
We ended up walking the 2 miles there because it was almost faster than taking the train and bus. We were able to see a soccer game...
tons of little league baseball games....
and people playing tennis. It was such a lovely walk through town. We loved seeing how families spend their Sundays outside in the park watching or playing with their children.
Once we got to Arashiyama we did the touristy thing and went through the bamboo forest.
Our attempt at a family photo!
We then went to see the monkeys.
Another beautiful view of Kyoto/ Arashiyama from the top of the Monkey park.
A mom and her 4 day old baby!!!!
On Monday, our last full day we planned one last epic hike up Mt Atago. Again, we didn't want to wait 40 minutes for a bus so we walked a couple of miles to the hike. It was absolutely breath taking at the bottom.
Family photo attempt number 4!
This was another very stair filled hiked and was projected to be 3 to 6 hours. We briskly climbed to the top in an hour and 24 minutes and descended in an hour and 10 minutes. It went to 924 meters.
At the top was another temple! So many temples!!!!
This may give you an idea of how steep this and the other climbs were. Rubix is shuffling side ways to slow himself down.
To celebrate our 15 mile day of over 30,000 steps we had a Hawaiian breakfast for dinner. We ate so much food!!!
On Tuesday morning we remembered to finally take a picture of the robes the Kyoto house loans you during your stay.
We had time for a walk through another park.
And then we were off for the train station for our hour and a half train ride to Osaka airport. We had such a wonderful time. We walked over 90 miles and saw and tasted wonderful things from the Japanese culture. We are now just trying to adjust back to local time and get back into the swing of things. We are beyond busy with swim, school, transitioning to high school events, math competitions, soccer and piano. We are so grateful for the fullness of our lives and feel so blessed to have the opportunities that we do. Sending our love.....
