How does one get motivated to write the final chapter of such a fantastic holiday? By writing this entry I have to admit to the world, and to myself that it's over.

There is however, a few factoids providing me some comfort at this time. 

Firstly, all holidays must come to an end. Without a defined beginning and a defined end, it simply isn't a holiday. The fact that it is ending, and there is already a desire to start making a list of the things we didn't get to do, or see, or the things that we would (read: will) do differently next time, is encouraging.

As much as we're all exhausted, and as much as each one of us just wants to sit down and do nothing for a few hours, or to sleep in our own beds, I think we all know that this trip has just satiated the Japan travel bug for now.

Would I want to travel back immediately and do it all again next week? Probably not.

Will I answer differently if you ask me the same question in 18 months time? Almost certainly. 

Another comfort in leaving already is that I'm not sure we could have fit too much more into the itinerary. The weather could have been a little bit kinder to us on this trip, but that’s one of the few aspects which were out of our control. At least nobody could accuse us of wasting time. On our holidays idle time feels like wasted time to us. We've never been the type of people to go on a holiday and just sit around a pool sipping a cocktail, or just "relaxing". I can relax at home in front of a violent video game if necessary.

We tried the "relaxing" holiday route a few years back on a 2 week cruise. Yes we were relaxed, but we found that the lines between "relaxed" and "bored" began to blur. A holiday where those 2 states can seamlessly overlap worries me, and the fear of wasted time causes anxiety, which causes me not to relax.

Yes I recognise that this isn’t normal, but until I learn to deal with these issues, it’s easier just to avoid the whole state of relaxation entirely. By that measure then the current holiday was a huge success, because we're completely exhausted. 

Possibly sounding a touch repetitive now, but I love Toyoko Inn. The convenience of the location and the military precision of the whole operation suits us perfectly. Service is unwaveringly friendly but as efficient as you could possibly expect. I’ve never noticed a spec of mess or uncleanliness in any of the hotel rooms, and we’ve stayed at many. The location is almost always superb if you’re navigating by train (and let’s face it, if you’re holidaying in Japan and aren’t on an oil baron’s salary, you will be), since they’re almost exclusively within short walking distance of a train station. Lastly, the price is very very fair. Yes the rooms are small, but we simply don’t need a lot of space in the rooms because we don’t spend any time in them, so for us they’re perfect.

Adding to the Toyoko Inn allure is the free breakfast. Very basic, I avoided it when we first went to Japan 9 years ago. I was a fool. These basic breakfasts are very tasty, and quintessentially Japanese. Today’s breakfast assortment was the usual onigiri (various flavours of rice balls), lotus root salad, a ham noodle salad, some fantastic meatballs in a bbq sauce, miso soup, tea, coffee and toast. I would have quite easily just taken the tray of meatballs back to my table and eaten it. It was that good.

Today’s adventures can be summed up fairly simply as just walking and shopping. With nothing left on the agenda left to do, this suited us fine. Even though we walked approximately 10km today, we’d class this as a “relaxing” final day.

Our hotel is not far from the central business district of Minato Mirai, which boasts a couple of theme parks, and a multitude of shopping options such as the red brick warehouses, the World Porta shopping mall, and the multitude of shops around Landmark Tower, and we knew from previous experience that there was more than enough here to occupy us for the few hours we had left before the necessity of heading to the airport became a reality.

The short walk to the harbourside was extended by a factor of 2 or 3 by the hunt for decorative tiles, which we’d only seen in Yokohama, built into the sidewalk. Fairly sure I walked twice as far as I needed to as more of these tiles were found, and photographed upon the demands of my children, whenever they came across a new one. What was initially a novelty became deeply annoying after a kilometre or so.

We arrived at the Minato Mirai area, and dominating the view are Landmark Tower and the massive “Cosmo Clock” ferris wheel at Minato Mirai 21 theme park area. Interesting to note that this was the tallest ferris wheel in the world when it opened in 1989.

With the theme park area not open until 11am, we made our way into World Porters for coffee and shopping, and into what was sadly to be the last Starbucks of the trip. I’m possibly the only person ever to have formed an emotional attachment to Starbucks, but it’s been such a quintessential part of this, and past Japan holidays. I’ll miss her and her comically oversized coffees.

With coffee done, we made our way further into World Porters, and found ourselves in something called Hawaiian Town. This cluster of shops, mainly food, were doing their best to recreate pretty much every Hawaiian theme I can imagine. Burgers were extremely popular, if not a little pricey. The most prominent shop I noticed was “Teddy’s Bigger Burgers”, which I later found out is a burger chain actually launched in Hawaii. I’m a little disappointed I didn’t have a burger there now, but at the time, and for the prices I couldn’t justify it. The average cheeseburger was 980 yen, or around $11 Australian dollars, and prices went up from there. And that was just for the burger, not a set. Add extra toppings, or fries and a drink, and you’re doubling your cost, easily.

The dearest burger I saw on the menu was the Premium Giga Monster Burger. A 5 patty behemoth, at 6800 yen, or around $80 Australian, I don’t imagine they sell many of them.

Ice cream in Hawaiian Town was popular, and the desire for ice cream led to one of the more bizarre moments of the trip. The Cold Stone Creamery is just your standard ice cream and crepe shop where you select your ice cream and mix-ins from a menu, and they smash it all up on a frozen bench in front of you. This one however, came with a little sign on the counter: “We sing for tips”.

Turns out, the young guy and girl behind the counter must have been so bored that day that they decided a tip wasn’t necessary. Mid-way through compiling one of the ice cream concoctions, the girl starts loudly banging her heavy metal spatulas together to create a rhythm (throwing little bits of ice-cream around everywhere in the process) before both her and the guy burst loudly into song. It took me a good few seconds for my brain to process what the hell was going on.

They began singing something loudly about ice cream, in a hybrid language of Japanese and English, and it was actually a genius marketing ploy. By the end of the serenade they had a bunch of people, previously uninterested in ice-cream, sticking their heads out of shops and around corners, looking in our direction, wondering what the hell all the singing and metal clanging was about.

We paid for the ice creams and were about to leave, when Angela realised that her order had peanut butter in it, instead of the caramel that it initially appeared to have judging by the picture in the menu. So, much to our servers delight, we ordered a different menu item for Angela.

“May I sing again?!” was the excited request from our male server.

“Uh…Sure…I guess. Knock yourself out!” was my reply, doing my best to feign enthusiasm.

This time, both burst into a great rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, with the words again changed to a hybrid language of Japanese + English, all about ice-cream. This time Charlotte got it all on video for prosperity.

The last lunch of the trip, at the very popular World Porters food court was anticlimactic. It was ok, but largely forgettable, which is disappointing for a last meal in Japan. Still, we’ve had some pretty amazing food over the last couple of weeks, so I’ll excuse this meal for being just “good”. Charlotte, Angela and I had a steak meal from a very popular steak restaurant. If this was Australia, you’d say the steak was just ok, but overpriced. Not sure what I was expecting, but it was no better than a steak meal you’d cook for yourself at home, with steak purchased from the local supermarket. As I said, forgettable.

Pick of the meals was Veronica’s curry udon noodles, with a bunch of tempura things on top which she was able to select. After finishing her dish after she couldn’t eat any more, I wished I’d gone there instead.

Heading over to the Minato Mirai theme park area, we recalled why we didn’t ride anything last time we were here in 2008. The prices per ride are a little ridiculous. The rides, with the exception of the roller coaster and ferris wheel, look like they’ve been wheeled in straight from an Easter show or county fair. They’re ordinary. Prices for these rides, per person, start from $10 each. It wouldn’t take too many rides before you’d spent as much as you would for a day at Disneyland. To put it in perspective, Nagashima Spa Land at the start of the trip charged per ride if you didn’t buy an all-day ride pass. Steel Dragon 2000, once the tallest and fastest rollercoaster on the planet, was only 800 yen, or around $9.

As it has done every day for the past few weeks, time began ticking away faster as the afternoon wore on, and the sun began to sink behind the buildings. We made our way over to the shops around Landmark Tower, in a desperate attempt to find another luggage bag, since we were assuming that our luggage was perilously over our 23kg per bag allowance.

Luggage stores in this part of town are horribly elusive. We found one, but the cheapest small suitcase they had was around $200. We also learned that there is no direct translation of the words “luggage scale” in Japanese. Even using Google Translate, I couldn’t explain to numerous shopkeepers that I was looking to buy a luggage scale. I eventually got the message across by translating the sentence “I want to buy something to measure the heaviness of my bags” and then making gestures of lifting heavy bags. The response I received? “No. Don’t have”.

As the rain started, so too did our last long walk of the trip, from Landmark Tower back through the city around Sakuragicho station, which is interestingly, the oldest train station in Japan, being the site of the original “Yokohama Station” which opened in 1872.

None of that mattered though. We were exhausted, and we were now concerned that we were running out of time to get to the airport, and even when we got to the airport, our heavy baggage situation may complicate things. Also, right about now, Isabelle, the youngest, who had been such a trouper for the entire trip, finally reached the point where she was so exhausted she declared that she wouldn’t make it, and that she was giving up. "Go on without me". 

Giving up wasn’t an option though, as we powerwalked from one shopping complex to the next in search of Daiso stores, other 100 yen stores and generally anywhere that sold luggage, without success. Defeated, we returned to the hotel around an hour and a half after leaving the Yokohama port, resigned to the knowledge that we’d probably be paying a hefty additional fee to bring home our hefty additional luggage.

So weighed down with suitcases, backpacks and aching legs we headed out into the Yokohama afternoon twilight…along with around 30000 other people. I wish I was exaggerating, but as we walked outside we realised that the Saturday baseball game at the stadium across the street had just finished, so we found ourselves in the middle of a human tide of baseball supporters, all flowing in the direction of Kannai train station…exactly where we were going.

Relaxation was going to elude us on this trip, right to the end, including the last train ride of the trip.

Kannai station isn’t big. It services a single above ground line, and a single underground subway line. By Japanese inner city train station standards, they don’t get much smaller. It certainly isn’t built to accommodate tens of thousands of people. We made our way into the station, purchased tickets (since our JR passes ran out 2 days ago), and then joined the flow of people all literally heading in the same direction, towards the train platforms heading either North or South.

As we arrived at the platform, a train was being stuffed with passengers, before speeding away moments later. We joined the queue with around 40 people in front of us for our doorway, so depending on how crowded the incoming train was going to be, there was serious doubts we’d make the next train. The train arrived, almost empty, and our position saw us stuffed onto the train with our suitcases and literally no other room to spare. Several guys attempted to push their way into the carriage without success, before the carriage doors shut behind me, trimming the hairs on the back of my neck in the process, before the train sped off to the next station.

Mercifully, 2 stops north put us at the extremely busy, but comparatively spacious and organised Yokohama station, before the last train ride of the trip, the relaxed and practically empty journey out to Haneda airport.

I really like Haneda airport. On previous trips we’ve always flown in and out of Kansai airport in Osaka, but on the way in a few weeks ago we saw brief glimpses of Haneda as we ran through the airport like idiots chasing after our anxious and spritely airport stewardesses, but today we had time to relax and really look around the airport.

We had all but given up hope of finding another suitcase, and we were expecting a massive “additional baggage” fee to get our luggage home. After all, nothing comes cheap at an airport, especially luggage, right? Well, it turns out, we were pleasantly mistaken. At the first shop we found, right at the front was a large, black hard shell suitcase, duty free for around $50 Australian. I could not believe the luck, and very soon, with passports examined and yen handed over, the suitcase was ours.We made our way up to the central baggage hall, found an extremely helpful ANA staff member who led us away to an “off limits” baggage weight station, and with some very careful shuffling of baggage contents, we got each of the bags below the weight limit.

With our baggage checked, we set off to explore the airport. An impressive array of shops, a very scenic viewing platform, and other interesting, albeit touristy, displays, and very soon boarding time for our flight approached. With some yen to spare, and not a Starbucks in sight, we settled for a “Café Cardinal” coffee and ice cream set, which was pretty darn awful. Kansai has a Starbucks in the departure lounge, which is a luxury notably absent from Haneda.

Finding our gate, with 300 other people already waiting to board our plane, we decided that we had 1800 yen in desperate need of spending, so Charlotte and I briskly walked down towards the duty free shops in the departure area. Finding nothing of interest at the first shop, we went to the second, then the third, and so on until we were a good 400m+ from our boarding gate, with 5 minutes to go till boarding. We ended up finding some nice souvenirs which fit the budget, before being told that we couldn’t purchase them for the marked price because they needed to see our passports, which we’d left back with Veronica and the luggage. Seriously?! We’re in the departure lounge, which we can’t get into without passports! We’re clearly not Japanese! Just give us the goddamn trinkets!!

But no, Mr Shopkeep-san refused until he saw our passports. Fine. One last run on the trip can’t hurt, right? So Charlotte and I ran, like idiots, back through the airport towards the gate, against the clock, before getting the passports, turning, and running back at the same pace. Watching a middle aged guy running at a decent clip through an airport chasing a 13 year old girl must have caught the attention of at least some of the security guards, but since my day didn’t end in an interrogation room I’m guessing they let it slide.

I’m fairly sure I threw the passports at the shop keeper when I got back to the store, as he painfully checked over the passports to ensure their validity and authenticity. I did very little to conceal my frustration and exasperation, much to the amusement of Charlotte and the other shop clerk at the duty-free store. I could have sworn at him really badly, had I known any Japanese swear words.

And with the boarding call, our latest adventure in Japan had come to an end, all over bar the sleepless flight on the return leg from Tokyo to Sydney. The ANA flight though was as good on the way back as the way over. Would have no hesitation flying with them again. 

Closing out a holiday with the people you love most, in the most amazing holiday destination (for us, anyway), and returning to the familiarity of everyday life including work, school, bills and lack of Coco Ichibanya Curry restaurants is never an easy thing to face.

Actually sitting down to write the closing chapter into permanent digital record is orders of magnitude harder to do, but as we all knew going into this, and all other previous adventures, they each have an end date that sneaks up on you in the blink of an eye. But, this simply serves a motivation to start planning, and saving for, the next trip. When I’m old and grey, sitting in a rocking chair on my front porch stroking a cat, or a feline cyborg equivalent, I know it is these trips that my memory, in whatever state of function it happens to be operating in, will frequently wander back to. My one hope is that the same is true for my girls.

So…closing thoughts on Japan, and in particular, the madness of Sakura season? It was a bucket-list item, as it is for anyone with a passing interest in visiting Japan. There is a massive amount of hype around cherry blossoms, and it is justifiably one of the biggest events in the Japanese calendar, and holds a special place in Japanese culture, emotion and psyche.

Honestly, even as a guy, who is about as interested in flowers as you’d expect, it is damn pretty.
Days that stick out in my mind are the festival at Joetsu, the Sakura at Nagashima Spa Land, and the afternoon at Kenrokuen Garden in Kanazawa, which was easily the most picturesque park I have ever seen in my life. The fact that it was at the peak of cherry blossom bloom, and literally empty, aside from I would estimate 10 other people dumb enough, like us, to brave the rain, made it all the more special. I dare say that not many people get to experience it like we did that day. Also, the sakura at Matsumoto castle at sunrise, again with the park to ourselves and the weather picture perfect, was something I will not ever forget.

On the flip-side, the weather we had on this trip was quite unkind to us. Apparently not uncommon for sakura season in Japan, we had rain on a larger percentage of days than I’d like to admit.

Would I recommend visiting Japan in cherry blossom season, braving crowds, much higher prices and lower hotel availability, and questionable weather, just to see some flowers among literally millions of other people?

Actually, yes. Absolutely. Is sakura season my favourite time in Japan? No. The flowers were pretty, but Japan is amazing without the added beauty of the cherry blossoms. We’ve visited in Autumn and Winter, and I’d rate both of those as better times to visit Japan.

We won’t hurry back for another sakura season, unless a lottery win comes our way, but nevertheless this ticks an item off our “must-do” bucket list and was, once again, an unforgettable holiday.

Now….time to start convincing my wife that we should start planning another trip…..