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Old 21 Aug 18, 04:03 PM  
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Caroian
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Have Child, Will Still Travel... to Japan! - Introduction, Background and Pre-Travel

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I've been toying with the idea of writing this trip report for the last four months – ever since we arrived back home from our time in Japan. I want to write it because there are still only a handful of Japan trippies on here, and I found them really useful to read before we went. They are all great reads, but none of them feature children, so perhaps this will helpful to others who want to do this trip with a young child. I also want to do it as a great way to record what we actually did.

So here's the but... Well, I started a trip report for our 2016 Florida trip which is still languishing unfinished. In fact, only about a week in, life took over and I haven't managed to get back to it. It seems a bit wrong to start another trip report when that one is incomplete. And also, if I couldn't get that one done, what makes me think I'll be able to do this one?!

But then, if I don't try, it definitely won't happen. I started to actually edit the photos recently and so thought why not give it a bash? I apologise if it tails off once I've shared three days!

The Cast




Me (Caroline) and my husband (Ian). Both hurtling alarmingly towards the big four-oh (plans afoot already for that big year, which will also see our tenth wedding anniversary). We both love to travel and particularly to see different sights and experience different cultures. We're not that keen on sitting by swimming pools or on beaches for too long (I get incredibly hot and burn really easily, and Ian does not swim – in fact he has a fear of water deeper than mid calf.) So we mostly do city break type holidays and tend to go at a pretty hectic pace. Ian is in charge of spreadsheets, I do packing and shopping but we share the planning equally.





Our son, Thomas, is six and was in year one at school at the time of the trip. He is (still) train obsessed, but also loves Lego, Minecraft, Pokemon, Science and History! (His favourite request after school is to “do a science experiment” and he loves visiting castles and finding out about the past.) At age six he has still not grown out of asking “why?” at every opportunity, and asks approximately 64 million questions a day! He hates to sleep and has only one speed – full pelt! He started learning Judo around 18 months ago, and despite missing some time due to a broken collar bone and missing a grading due to illness, he's now got a red belt with two stripes. Sadly we could not fit anything Judo related in to the trip.

We've been training Thomas in the art of the city break from a very young age – he still talks about our trip to Berlin when he was just two because he still remembers all the trains he got to see! He is well used to long days and a lot of walking. His dislike of sleep and boundless energy serves us well here!


The Trip

So the title of the trip report comes about from the reaction that we had so many times when we told people were heading off to Japan for nearly three weeks with a six year old. “That's an odd choice for a family holiday” and “There is no way I'd take a child there” and “Oh, a child of that age won't appreciate that”. In fact, I posted about our plans on another (well known) forum and got quite a vitriolic response from one poster that suggested it was cruel to take our child there when all children without exception would prefer to be on a beach and playing football (two things which don't – or at least didn't until the World Cup - really interest Thomas!).

There may well be some truth that Japan is not an obvious family destination. However , as noted, we rarely take typical “family holidays” and Thomas has already been on almost a dozen European city breaks, so it's a style of holiday he is very comfortable with. I'm also of the opinion that as parents you should not necessarily put your own desires and enjoyment entirely out of the picture for 18 years – we believe family life needs to be something for the entire family to enjoy together!

However the funniest part of it all is that Japan was actually Thomas's suggestion. When we returned from Florida in May 2016, we asked (then four year old) Thomas where he wanted to go the following year. The answer was Japan. Thomas was – and still is – utterly train obsessed, and at that stage his newest favourite train was the Shinkansen Bullet. He used to spend hours looking at pictures of them and watching documentaries about their engineering. So it was a natural choice for him. It was s suggestion that Ian and I were definitely interested in, as neither of us had so far been to Japan and both had it on our list of places we'd like to visit.

We started looking in to it, but for various reasons it seemed it wasn't going to work in 2017, so we put it on a back burner. We enjoyed a European road trip in 2017 plus trips to France and Ireland instead. An opportunity then arose for a different Asian trip in 2018 – and we started looking at fitting in Hong Kong Disneyland with that trip. When that trip fell through, looking again at Japan was an obvious choice – we could still fit in some Disney plus trains for Thomas.

When an idea is feasible, we don't hang around. In a very short space of time we had an itinerary taking in the major sights of Tokyo, TDL, Kyoto and Osaka. We booked direct flights with BA and a combination of accommodation including a Western Style hotel, a family hostel and a couple of Air BnBs. Booking Disney was the very last piece of the puzzle as it could not be done until 5 months in advance online, and involved middle of the night shenanigans (when the rooms are released) plus a Skype call as it didn't seem to work, but eventually we has 3 nights at Disney's Ambassador Hotel booked and we were almost all set!

Planning for this trip actually took a bit of a backseat in the end because so much ended up happening in our lives. We had a sudden family death, and subsequent house sort and sale to assist with, and then we ended up unexpectedly moving house ourselves (the perils of late night Right Move browsing – don't do it! ) The house purchase hit several hold ups – including the vendor of the property at the top end of the chain passing away and therefore a need for us all to wait for probate. We then had trouble finding a completion date that worked for everyone and so we ended up completing on Tuesday 27th March – we flew to Tokyo on Good Friday, the 30th of March! Talk about tight!

So, rather less planning that I might have desired happened. We did manage to prebook JR Passes to cover all of our bullet train journeys. We also got tickets for the Ghibli museum in another middle of the night escapade and after reading about it on the Dibb, secured a reservation for the brand new Pokemon cafe in Tokyo towards the end of our trip (which involved translating my name in to Japanese!) We also registered for, and were matched with, a “Tokyo Greeter” for our first full day in Tokyo.

Now I must admit that I also had some trepidation about the trip as I was concerned that I wouldn't love Japan. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to go, and I knew that I would enjoy myself, but I was just worried that I would find the “style” of the country overwhelming. I'm not a massive fan of stuff like Hello Kitty, and I was worried that it would all be a bit “in your face”. I've loved so many places we've travelled, and often could see myself living in different places, so was worried that I wouldn't feel that way about Japan. I guess that I really wanted to love it, but was worried that I just wouldn't. Which sounds ridiculous, but hey-ho. Anyway – spoiler alert – I loved it, and cannot wait to go back again!

Our finalised itinerary was
Fly direct to Tokyo (Narita)
4 Nights in Tokyo (Nishikasai)
3 Nights Tokyo Disney Resort
4 Nights in Kyoto
4 Nights in Osaka
3 Nights in Tokyo (Shinjuku)
Fly direct home to London


Pre-travel

The pre-travel dates were a little fraught with house purchase completion, and then I was working a late evening (until 7.30pm) the night before. Thomas broke up from school at midday on the Wednesday and despite me not being at work that day, I did book him in to the school's holiday club to give myself some more breathing room and to try to get packed. We were aiming to travel fairly light as we had five separate lots of accommodation booked and three long distance bullet train journeys, so we did not want to have masses of luggage to manage. We did pretty well in the end, getting everything in to ur two medium sized Tripp suitcases, Ian and I each had a backpack (his containing the camera and lenses plus laptop) and we had bought Thomas a Trunki Boostapak so so we did not have to worry about car seats on the way to the airport and for any car trips we ended up doing in Japan.

We managed – against a lot of odds - to get everything packed the night before, and were ready to go!


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Old 21 Aug 18, 08:41 PM  
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Pussycat Doll
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Gosh, that was all a bit fraught right up to travel day! Looking forward to reading more.
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Old 21 Aug 18, 09:21 PM  
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Fortytwo
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Following along, so you must finish or I will need to hound you for more days
Our youngest will be about 6 when we plan to go so it will be good to know what Thomas makes of it, and we plan to do most of the same things -Disney, Pokémon cafe, Shinkansen, but would be great to get more ideas too.
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Old 24 Aug 18, 08:25 PM  
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Caroian
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Originally Posted by Fortytwo View Post
Following along, so you must finish or I will need to hound you for more days
Our youngest will be about 6 when we plan to go so it will be good to know what Thomas makes of it, and we plan to do most of the same things -Disney, Pokémon cafe, Shinkansen, but would be great to get more ideas too.
Well I've managed to get another day up, so no need to hound me for now!

There is definitely loads to interest young kids. I won't provide too many spoilers though, or you won't keep pestering me to finish, and then I might not do it
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Old 25 Aug 18, 07:56 PM  
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Goodness me moving house just before a big trip must be a bit fraught but definitely a well timed and deserved break from the stress! I look forward to hearing all about your trip.
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Old 25 Aug 18, 08:15 PM  
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Can't wait to read this one. Our three children are grown up but I agree about not putting your own wants aside entirely with children.
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Old 28 Aug 18, 09:57 PM  
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sounds like a fantastic trip
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Old 2 Sep 18, 03:59 PM  
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Caroian
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Originally Posted by OB1LukeLucas View Post
Goodness me moving house just before a big trip must be a bit fraught but definitely a well timed and deserved break from the stress! I look forward to hearing all about your trip.
It certainly wasn't the best timing, but it all worked out well in the end! Thanks for reading

Originally Posted by JudyC View Post
Can't wait to read this one. Our three children are grown up but I agree about not putting your own wants aside entirely with children.
Ah, thank you and thanks for reading

Originally Posted by disney owl View Post
sounds like a fantastic trip
It really was - I'm enjoying reliving it as I write this!
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